


A Real Backwater Skug Hole

by Thalius



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Frequent Apologizing, Gen, Injury Recovery, Mandalorian Culture, Mentions of Sexual Assault, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Parenthood, Separation Anxiety, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Social Awkwardness, Strategic Undressing, set in the weeks after the village battle in s1e4, the smut is in chapter 16 folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 99,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/pseuds/Thalius
Summary: Maybe Sorgan could be home for a while.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & Winta, The Mandalorian & Baby Yoda, The Mandalorian & Winta, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars)
Comments: 791
Kudos: 1828





	1. Victory Meal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now is the time for revelry.

The walk from the longhall to the barn was a short one, and despite the dark that settled over the plains, her boots easily found where to step. The noise from the hall spilled out across the village, carried into the trees by the krill ponds. People laughing, singing, clattering bowls together. More noise than they’d ever dared make in months. 

As she approached the door to the barn, she made sure her footfalls tread loudly on the wood panels of the porch. She could hear no noise inside.

Omera pressed her shoulder to the thatched wall and cleared her throat. “May I come in?”

“A moment,” came the immediate reply, and a sound of scuffing boots followed. His voice had been higher than she was used to hearing, unmodulated by his helmet. “Come in,” he said then, his voice now familiarly mixed with a faint, hollow feedback.

She ducked inside, and found him seated on the floor in front of a lantern and a plate of food. She wasn’t sure if he was a picky eater or simply not hungry, but most of it looked untouched. 

“How is the meal?” she asked, setting her own plate down on a bench and sitting next to it.

“It’s very good, thank you.”

She considered teasing him about sitting on the floor and picking at his food like a child, but decided against it. Testing his patience and sense of humour would be for another time. 

“Will you come join us in the hall afterwards?” she asked instead.

His helmet dipped down. “I don’t think so. I’m very tired.”

Omera nodded, not surprised. A round of uproarious laughter floated in from the open door, followed by table-pounding. The longhall sounded like it was only a few paces away. “Doesn’t it bother you, to eat out here by yourself? We’re celebrating our victories, yours included.”

A shoulder rose in a shrug. “I’m used to it,” he replied.

“Then perhaps you’d like a dinner partner.”

He said nothing for a long moment, his visor pointed at the floor. “I can’t,” he said finally.

“I can sit with my back to you. I promise I won’t look,” she added, smiling faintly. “But it’s rude to not dine with guests.”

“I can’t,” he repeated, though he whispered it this time. “But I’m grateful for the offer.”

She exhaled, nodding and standing up. What else could she possibly have expected? “Very well. I’ll leave you to eat.”

He said nothing to that, only watching her collect her plate and head for the barn door. It was darker inside the barn than outside, even with the lit lantern, and she wasn’t nearly as familiar with its layout than the village’s pathways. She stepped carefully, making sure not to run into anything. Spilling her food all over the floor would have the dual effect of looking foolish and further disrupting the man sitting alone behind her. 

She was at the threshold of the barn when he spoke again. “If anyone sees me,” he said softly. “I can’t—no one can see me,” he repeated, sounding as if he was struggling for words. 

Omera turned, looking at him still seated on the floor, and thought she understood what he was trying to say. “I swear I won’t look at you,” she whispered. “If you’d prefer not to eat alone.”

He was quiet again, one of his fingers tapping on the bandolier strapped to his boot. 

“Okay.”

* * *

She settled herself down near him, facing the door. This close, the lantern gave enough light that she could see her own food, and she picked at it now. She was still famished, and this was her second plate, but she would wait for him first.

“How are the children?” he asked her, surprising her with a question. She looked away from the pair of gloves he'd tossed onto the floorboards, down to her meal. 

“Happy,” she replied, “though they’re scared to come out of the longhall when it’s dark like this. I suspect they’ll be afraid for a while.”

“Of course.” A pause, and when he spoke again, it was muffled slightly as he talked around his food. “And the kid?”

“Also good,” she reported, smiling. “He’s the most content baby I’ve ever met. He doesn’t fuss or cry, and the noise doesn’t seem to bother him.”

“A lucky break,” he responded, and she swore there was a faint trace of amusement in his voice. 

“You’ve had him for a while?” she ventured, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“No, not long. A week or so.”

“How did you come to adopt a Force-sensitive child?” 

Silence followed. He stopped eating. 

“Pardon?”

“He twirled a krill in the air for the children,” she explained. “And I’ve seen how he plays.”

“You know about the Force?”

“I know a lot of things,” she replied dryly, deciding not to take offence at his bewildered tone. “I may be a farmer, but I’m not oblivious to the workings of the world.”

“I apologise,” he said immediately. “I’m just… surprised.”

“So? Will you answer my question?”

He cleared his throat, and drank deeply of the spotchka he’d been given. “I was hired to kill him,” he told her.

She masked her surprise by taking in a mouthful of food, washing it down with her own drink. He’d said it so plainly, as if they were discussing harvest cycles. “You took a bounty to kill a child?” she eventually asked.

“I didn’t know he was a child when I accepted,” he responded defensively. “They barely gave me any information on the target.”

“I see.” Nothing he said clarified or illuminated—it only prompted a dozen other questions, some of which were invasive and perhaps even rude. “You didn’t go through with it, obviously.”

“No,” he said, but sounded hesitant, as if he was unsure of the answer. 

“An honourable thing to do.”

“Not honourable,” he insisted, his words suddenly hard. Angry. “I delivered him to the client, collected the reward. I only came back for him later.”

Omera suppressed the urge to turn and look at him, to see the shame in his words on his face instead. Keeping her head down, she smiled instead, taking a deliberately amused tone. “Robbing child-murderers sounds rather honourable to me.”

His only response was a grunt, and then they didn’t talk for a while. It gave her time to eat her own meal and listen to the sounds still coming from the longhall. Winta had been in especially high spirits when she left the hall to come here, dancing and playing hoop and showing the Mandalorian’s strange little boy how to play skipscotch. 

“You keep calling him kid,” Omera observed, nearly finished her meal now, and surprised herself with how loud she sounded in the silence of the barn. “Does he have a name?”

“No,” he replied. “Not yet.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

She bit her lip. “Is that secret, too?”

“No.”

Like pulling teeth, she thought. “Usually when people ask after a man’s name, they give it.”

“Din Djarin,” he murmured, and she heard him shift to lean back against his pack. His boots came into view as his legs stretched out in front of him, and she heard a joint pop as he settled.

“I see,” she said. “I would shake your hand, but….”

She heard more shuffling behind her, then a hand appeared by her shoulder, held out in offering. It was bare, his fingers calloused and worn with work but not overly brutish or thick. It looked normal, though she wasn’t sure what else she’d been expecting.

Omera took it without looking over her shoulder. His skin was warm and smooth. “Nice to properly meet you, Din.”

“Aye,” he agreed, and quickly his hand retracted away. 

More silence followed, though it was more awkward than before. She heard him place his helmet back on and settle further against the bedding she’d laid out for him several days ago. 

She stood up then, taking her plate, and went to grab his until she remembered herself. “May I?” she asked, looking at the floor.

“Yes,” he said, and she turned to take in the sight of him again, once more clad in his helmet. The usual taut, rigid line of his shoulders was now relaxed, and if he’d not spoken a moment prior she would have assumed he was asleep. 

Omera gathered up both of their dishes and looked towards the entrance of the barn. The sky had brightened a little, promising dawn in short order. The exhaustion he spoke of she also felt in spades, and now with a full belly she was looking forward to nothing more than sleeping.

“Well, goodnight,” she offered in parting, giving him a farewell nod.

“Goodnight,” he replied. “And—thank you.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed the meal.” 

He said nothing to that, only crossing his arms and tipping his head down to rest against his chestplate. She wondered why he didn’t just lie down, but that was low on the long list of his confounding habits.

She walked out of the barn and back into the open air, breathing deeply. Sulfur and burnt chaff still wafted strongly through the air, and likely would for days to come. The longhall was still full of raucous laughter and the twang of instruments, and she suspected no one would get much work done tomorrow. 

But they had time now.

As she headed back to the longhall, their plates in hand, it struck her that perhaps the Mandalorian had been thanking her for something other than the food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check out and support the wonderful art people have made for this fic! Note that some of the art could be considered a "spoiler", so I've arranged them by chapter and labelled them according to artist. If I've spelled your name wrong/you've switched urls/I somehow missed you on this list, please let me know and I'll update it asap!
> 
> You can also find me at [@oriyala](https://oriyala.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!
> 
> **Chapter 1**
> 
>   * [Sarma](https://sarma.tumblr.com/post/189525104674)
> 

> 
> **Chapter 5**
> 
>   * [Cranity](https://cranity.tumblr.com/post/190975339062/what-do-you-need-he-heard-her-say-from-the)
> 

> 
> **Chapter 15**
> 
>   * [Cranity](https://cranity.tumblr.com/post/610894773105164288/im-so-sorry-to-be-back-at-it-again-with-an-even)
> 

> 
> **Chapter 16**
> 
>   * [Cranity](https://cranity.tumblr.com/post/612810335730221056/from-a-real-backwater-skug-hole-by-oriyala-full) (nsfw)
>   * [Sarma](https://sarma.tumblr.com/post/612340852623294464)
>   * [Sarma](https://sarma.tumblr.com/post/613886336685981696) (nsfw)
> 



	2. Patrol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kid's got some hangups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanna say a super duper big large huge thank-you to all the positive comments and responses I've gotten for the fic so far. I'll do my best to reply to comments, but if I miss anyone please know I'm really grateful!
> 
> The updates for this won't follow any set schedule, but I have a draft or two that was written before ep4 dropped and needs to be updated so it fits the canon better before I can post them.
> 
> Cheers!

Every single one of his injuries over the past two weeks were finally catching up with him, and in the cold air of dawn, he found it difficult to move.

With the muscles in his neck and shoulders threatening to seize, he made a conscious effort to relax against the bedding spread out across the barn floorboards. Dune was asleep on her own bed, arm thrown over her eyes and snoring faintly. The sight made him unspeakably jealous.

He felt a rustle by his side and slowly, carefully, rolled his helmet across his pillow and looked down. There was a lump beneath his blanket, and he didn’t need much of an imagination to guess at what it could be.

Each joint, each muscle relaxed and then flexed, testing what hurt. Everything did, but most of it was manageable. His left shoulder might be a problem, and many of his ribs hurt from the beating he’d taken from Dune. 

He hoped she was just as bloodied.

When he was confident he could sit up without inducing muscle spasms, he pushed up off his bedding with a hand behind him, cradling the now-cooing blanket lump against his other side. 

“You gotta sleep in your own bed,” he whispered, unfolding the blanket to reveal two big green ears and two even bigger dark eyes. “I don’t even know how you got out of the crib.”

The kid offered no explanation, simply staring up at him. He decided it was a deliberate attempt at forestalling punishment, and it was working. Hoisting the kid up near his good shoulder, he stood up and set his blanket aside, stretching out his bones. He felt a hundred years old. 

Moving quietly to not disturb Dune, he ventured out of the barn with the kid in tow. The sun wasn’t up yet, only dusting the horizon with a faint purplish glow. The southern ponds were still a mess, the water half-boiled and full of blood and sod from the battle the night before. The surface of the ponds were thick and fluorescent blue, roiling with hundreds of dead krill. He found himself hoping they could still use them somehow, even if only to sell in the nearby town.

“You want some breakfast?” he asked the kid, who cooed back at him. He still wasn’t sure if it could understand him, but it seemed happy whenever he spoke to it, at least. 

There was smoke rising out of the chimney in the longhall, so he made his way over there. Carefully. The paths between the ponds were narrow and soft, and one wrong step would land him in the water. He kept a tight hold of the kid as he walked.

The inside of the hall showed all the signs of the massive celebration the night before—the seating was in disarray, the floors were a mess, and the dish cabinets were thoroughly pilfered. Apparently the stress applied by the raiders had been worse than he thought.

He found Winta seated quietly at one of the cleared tables, rubbing at her eyes and yawning into a steaming bowl of stew. She perked up when she saw him, her eyes landing immediately on the kid.

“Fuzzy!” she exclaimed, shoving out of her seat and running over to him. She stopped short a few steps away, as if suddenly noticing he was there, too. “Good morning,” she said, looking up at him shyly and sounding much more subdued. 

“Morning.” He walked passed her, over to where she’d been sitting and set the kid down on the bench beside her. She quickly slid back into her seat and grinned at the kid.

He groaned and sat down on the opposite side. “Fuzzy?” he asked, watching her scoop some of her stew from the bowl and hand it to the kid.

“Yeah, I call him that sometimes,” she explained, peeking up at him. “Because his ears are fuzzy. Some of the kids call him Froggy because he’s good at catching frogs, but I like Fuzzy better.”

“I see.” 

“Is that okay?”

“Better than calling him kid,” he replied, hoping she heard the amusement in his voice.

She nodded sagely. “That’s what I thought.”

He looked out across the hall and saw a few of the villagers standing around the central firepit, loading up bowls with stew from a massive pot as more villagers drifted in. “You guys eat all your meals like this?”

“Most of them,” Winta said around the spoon in her mouth. “Less thatch fires if there’s just one firepit.” 

He looked back to the kid, who was tipping the cup Winta had given it nearly upside down to get the last mouthfuls of stew. He grabbed the cup from the kid and got a grumpy look in return. There were a few dribbles of stew on its forehead from where the rim of the cup had touched its face, and he reached over and wiped its head clean with a corner of his cloak. 

It grabbed for the cup in his other hand, whining. “I’ll go get you more,” he explained calmly, and slid out of the seat before it could protest.

As he approached the pit he saw Omera handing bowls out to groggy villagers. He felt a sting of embarrassment at the sight of her, remembering the meal they’d eaten together last night, though he wasn’t sure why. She turned at the sound of his footfalls and grinned at him, and he pushed down his discomfiture. She obviously didn’t share the sentiment—or she was very good at hiding it. He wasn’t sure which one scared him more.

“Good morning,” she said then, bringing him out of his thoughts with a hand extended to reach for the empty cup he was holding. “Stew for your boy?”

“Please,” he said, giving it over to her.

“Are you hungry? I can pack something for you.”

“That would be nice, thank you. I’ll be heading out soon to patrol the forest.”

She looked over her shoulder, the ladle still in her hand, and he noticed a few of the others hovered around to listen to their conversation. “You don’t think they’ll come back?”

“A few got away, but we destroyed their camp. They’ll be desperate for food and shelter. They may come back to pillage for supplies. But it’s not likely,” he added, seeing several horrified expressions levelled his way. He decided not to add that the raiders might also come back to take revenge and raze the village. “It’s just a precaution. Dune will rotate with me and patrol at dusk. Now and at night are the most likely times they would attack.”

She nodded, passing him the now-full cup and then turning around to soothe the crowd of anxious villagers gathered around the firepit. _Poor bedside manner,_ Dune had told him. He should probably work on that.

He ducked back towards Winta’s table and found it now crowded with children, all fixated on the kid. He lingered only long enough to deliver the stew and then left the hall, ignoring all the eyes on his back.

* * *

Dune woke as he was packing, and groaned as she stretched her arms out towards the thatched roof.

“Where you going?” she asked, sitting up and looking around the barn.

“Patrol,” he told her. “Be gone for a few hours.”

“Don’t wanna relax for a day?” She stood up and rolled her broad shoulders, then patted at her thigh to find her gun still securely seated in its holster. “They’ll be too weak to attack right now.”

“I’ll be back at noon,” he said, pointing out of the window to the sun now brushing over the trees. “If the sun passes zenith and I’m not back, come look for me. I’ll leave a trail.”

Her only reply was a derisive snort that he chose to ignore. 

He took his rifle, his sidearm, and loaded what was left of the whistling birds into the vambrace chamber. It had been difficult to see how many raiders escaped in the ensuing chaos of the AT-ST exploding, but he guessed no more than ten. Enough to give him trouble if he ran into them.

“Where’s your kid?” Dune asked then, making a show of looking into the empty crib.

“At the longhall.”

There was a beat of silence. Then: “You sure about that?”

He looked up from his weapons rack. “Excuse me?”

She pointed out the window and raised a brow, and he followed the line of her finger. A small figure was waddling towards the barn, cup in hand. It brightened at the sight of him in the window.

Din sighed. 

* * *

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he told the kid for the dozenth time, sitting him back down in the seat beside Winta.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking between them. “He just disappeared while we were talking.”

“He does that.” Din knelt down at the table and pointed a finger at the now-pouting kid. “You have to stay here. This isn’t like before.”

He felt Dune’s eyes on him, watching on with amusement. He ignored her. “You’ll stay with Winta and the other kids,” he continued, nodding to the girl. “She’s good at caring for you.”

The kid did not respond, only staring at him, _into_ him, with those big dark eyes that pleaded for him to stay. Something in his chest cleaved and cracked open as he stood up and looked away from the kid, slinging his rifle back over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he told Dune, speaking loudly enough that the others heard him as well. 

He made it five paces to the door when a piercing wail filled the longhall, stopping all conversation and making his hand instinctively go to his sidearm. He whirled on his heel to the source of the sound—the kid, now clamped to Winta’s lap by her hands. 

“Shhh!” He strode back over and picked the kid up, and the high-pitched sound immediately stopped. It was level with his visor, staring at him. It blinked slowly, as if it hadn’t just been making some horrible noise. “What is the matter with you?”

“He’s never made that sound before,” Winta said, removing her hands from her ears.

“I know.”

He looked around the hall. It had filled up with the rest of the villagers while he’d been packing, and every one of them was now staring at him and the kid.

He turned back and focused on the child in his hands. “I’ll be back,” he repeated, and then realised it had no reason to trust his word. He’d given the kid away before.

The cleave grew wider.

“I promise,” he whispered, hoping it understood, hoping it recognised the weight of that vow. “I won’t leave you here. Trust me.” _Trust me even though you have no reason to._ “Please.”

Its gaze was measured and full, dark and completely inscrutable. It didn’t nod or acknowledge his words with even its regular cooing. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

After a moment of having a staring match with the kid, he moved slowly, gently placing it back down in Winta’s lap. Its eyes never left his visor, even as Winta placed two bracing hands on its sides. 

“We’ll take care of him,” the girl promised, rocking the kid gently on her lap. It still stared up at him.

Without thinking about it too much, he gave the kid a pat on the head, hoping that conveyed his honesty. Hoping it was enough.

When he turned away and walked towards the door this time, the kid did not scream, and he finally allowed himself to draw in a ragged breath.


	3. Stories to Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of work to do, and even more stories to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bumping up to T because there's some dead bodies in this one. More thanks on all the wonderful comments!

She was slowly coming to the unfortunate realisation that all the food in this village was going to taste like krill.

The stew was good. It was. But it was also the dozenth meal she’d had that consisted primarily of krill meat, and even the freshly-brewed spotchka was beginning to lose its novelty. She would kill for even a dry biscuit that didn’t have any trace of freshwater shellfish oil in it.

Cara was seated at one of the larger tables, surrounded by villagers on all sides. The faint throb of a hangover from the celebrations the night before still pulsed at her temples, but the food was working well to remedy that. At least krill were good for something.

“How long do you think you’ll stay here?” Stoke asked beside her. 

She shrugged. “Not sure. Be nice to lay low for a while.”

“You can stay as long as you wish,” Omera said across from her. “We’re all incredibly grateful.”

Cara shifted uncomfortably in her seat, dismissing the praise with a handwave. “It was nothing.”

Caben leaned around Stoke to look at her. “No, it was awesome. You said you were a shock trooper during the civil war, right?” 

“Yeah,” she answered vaguely. It was one thing to confide in a Guildsman about her service record. It was another thing altogether to tell civilians she’d worked with the rebellion. People were always weird about it, one way or another. 

She turned to Omera and spoke before any follow-up questions could be asked. “So who’s like, your leader here?”

Omera raised a brow. “Leader?”

“Yeah, your village elder or whatever.”

“We’re a village of twenty people,” Omera said amusedly. “We decide by consensus. There’s no need for a leader.”

Cara nodded and spooned out another mouthful of stew. “Democratic. I like it.”

“You really think the raiders will come back?” Caben asked, practically leaning on top of Stoke now to get her attention.

Cara sighed. “No. Djarin's just being paranoid.”

“You two known each other long?” Omera asked.

“Met him the morning before we arrived here,” she said with a grin. “He’s a weird guy.”

“He has a lot of guns,” Stoke observed, shoving Caben off. 

Conversation drifted to more banal things after that—mostly about all the work that had to be done. The village was a mess, and there was still the problem of moving the AT-ST out of the ponds. She almost regretted suggesting digging the pit so deeply. It had seemed like a much better plan when she wasn’t preoccupied with how to get an Imperial walker _out_ of a krill pond.

But everyone seemed resolved not to worry about it now—there were more pressing concerns, like rebuilding destroyed huts and burning the bodies of the dead raiders. 

“We’ll have to take them far enough away that the smell doesn’t attract wildlife,” Omera said. “A day’s ride away on the wagon, at least.”

“One of us can escort,” Cara offered. “Wouldn’t want to be attacked on the ride out.”

“We’ll need the wagon for hauling chopwood back here, too,” Caben said. “And for shifting soil to dig new ponds.”

“And for scrapping the walker,” Stoke added.

“And for—”

“There’s a wait-list, then,” Cara said with a sigh. “But dealing with the bodies first is probably a good idea. Especially if there are dangerous animals around.” She directed the last part to Omera, more question than statement.

The other woman nodded. “The krill attract enough forest cats as it is.”

“Great.” She slapped the table and stood up, stretching. “I’ll prep the wagon. Boy wonder should be back from his patrol in…” Cara looked out of one of the longhall’s windows, “an hour or so, and then one of us can head out.”

Omera stood up with her, glanced briefly at the children’s table, and then nodded. “Good. We’ll herd people out when they’re done their meals.”

“Ugh,” Stoke groaned, rubbing at his temples. “I don’t know about—”

“Eat up,” Omera interrupted, and with enough authority to make Cara doubt her earlier claim about the village being leaderless. “We’re all hungover, and there’s a lot of work to do.”

“I know! I know.” He sighed into his soup. “We’ll be out soon.”

 _“You_ will be out soon,” Caben corrected. “I still have a lot of food to get through.”

A glare from Omera quieted them both, and then she stepped away from the table and gestured to the door. “Come on,” she said to Cara. “I’ll start the wagon for you.”

* * *

Aside from all the raid-related clean-up, there was an abundance of work that also needed to be done. The demands of a farm could not be put on hold simply because the village was in disarray, and Cara watched the villagers slowly spill out of the longhall as breakfast wrapped up to face that fact. She was impressed with their resilience; they’d been fighting their first-ever battle not a day ago, and yet here they all were, in good spirits and ready to get back to work. She’d have to mention it later. Maybe around another bowl of krill.

She shoved the last raider onto the bed and huffed out a breath. The wagon was surprisingly accommodating go the weight of a dozen or so dead Klatooinians. Its pilot droid squawked at her for getting blood all over the wagon bed, but she quieted it with a promise to clean it out once they were finished. 

“Think it can hold two more people?” she asked the droid, who swivelled around in the driver socket to glare at her with its singular red eye. 

It beeped angrily.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” 

She knelt down and began to scrub at the blood and muck on her hands and gear in one of the ruined pools. The state of the village’s running water was limited to two hand-pumping wells and the communal showers that could be accessed in town. She wasn’t unused to being grubby, but she was already wishing for a hot shower. It would be a long however-many-weeks they were going to spend here, and not just because of the lack of plumbing.

She was almost finished cleaning up when she saw movement at the edge of the forest. Cara’s hand went to her gun until she saw a flash of steel, and she stood up to see the Mandalorian coming out of the forest. He didn’t look bloodied or roughed up, which was a good sign, but there was a slight hobble to his gait that suggested he was nursing an injury. 

Perhaps it was from their fight in the town. The thought made her grin.

“Welcome back,” she called as he approached. “Any boogiemen to report?”

“No,” he replied curtly, stopping several paces away. He barely looked at her, his helmet swivelling around to survey the village. “Where’s the kid?”

Apparently he wasn’t in a good mood either. She shot a meaningful glance towards the wagon. “Do I look like his mother? I don’t know, I’ve been busy working while you were prancing around the forest.”

There was no way to tell if he was glowering beneath the helmet, but she would bet her blaster that he was giving her the stink eye.

Cara rolled her eyes after a moment of annoyed silence. “Check the hall. Or with Omera. I’m sure her kid’s got a hold of him.” She gave him a once-over. “Separation anxiety getting to you?”

He didn’t respond to that either, instead striding past her towards the centre of the village. She watched him go with amusement, and called out: “don’t get too comfortable! There’s a lotta work to do!”

More silence. She grinned back at the droid, who beeped at her again. “At least you talk back,” she lamented.

* * *

He found the kid easily enough—he had a dozen children in his orbit, all giggling and squealing at whatever he was doing. He spotted Winta among them, her hands holding onto something he couldn’t see.

He cleared his throat and a few of the children looked up, then immediately moved away to make room for him. The kid was standing in the middle of the circle the children had made, batting at the krill that wriggled in the dirt. 

“Having fun?” he asked, more to the kid than anyone else, but Winta looked up and answered him.

“He’s been showing us how to make krill fly!”

At the sound of his voice the kid looked up at him, the krill forgotten. His hands stretched out and he waddled towards Din, his current trajectory setting him on a path to grab for his boot. He picked up the kid instead and hoisted him up to his shoulder, turning his helmet to regard the tiny creature staring up at him. The stricken look from his eyes when he’d last seen him was gone, replaced by a warm contentedness that was infectious.

“Hello, _ad’ika,”_ he murmured, rocking him gently.

The kid cooed in reply, his claws scratching his pauldron. He felt the knot of muscle in both shoulders unbind at the sound. 

“What’s that mean?” Winta asked, and he suddenly remembered the audience they had.

“It means kid in Mando’a,” he explained, looking over at her. “Where’s your mother?”

“Helping Stoke, I think. What’s Mando’a?”

“The language of the Mandalorians.” He looked out across the village and found Omera next to Stoke, speaking quietly and pointing at one of the destroyed huts.

“Can we keep playing with him?”

He looked down at the kid, who had settled comfortably into his shoulder. He’d just wanted to check in, make sure he was still happy and content, but he found himself now unwilling to give the kid up so quickly again.

“In a bit,” he told Winta, and then walked away to prevent any opportunity to argue with him. 

Omera looked up as he approached and shushed Stoke with a finger in the air. She waved Din over, and asked as soon as he got within heading range: “did you find anything in the forest?”

“No, it’s all clear for now.” He stopped short. “I set up a few remote sentries that should keep track of any movement near the village.”

Omera nodded gratefully. “Thank you.”

“We’ll still take shifts,” he continued, nodding back towards Dune. “Make sure nothing slips by.”

“Of course.”

There was a pause as he stepped away from them both, considering the destroyed hut beside them. The blast from the AT-ST had burned or destroyed the building and everything inside it, leaving only scorched earth in its wake.

“Sora’s family is staying with Caben while we rebuild,” Stoke said behind him. “But it’ll take a while.”

He looked back at the pair. “What do you need us to do?”

“Cara’s loading up bodies to be burned, and then maybe we can figure out how to move the walker.” Omera stepped towards him and smiled at the kid, smoothing a thumb and finger over one of his ears. “How is your little one?”

“Good,” he replied, “I think.”

Omera gave him an amused look. “You think?”

“I haven’t figured out all of his moods yet.” He poked him with a finger, and the kid looked up at him. _“Me'vaar ti gar, ad’ika?”_

He responded to Mando’a the same as he did to Common, only blinking up at him and cooing. He took that as a good sign. 

“He’s good,” he repeated, much more confidently this time. Omera seemed to find that funny for some reason, though he couldn’t place why.

“Good,” she replied. “Then you can give him back to the children and help me burn some bodies.”

“You’re going?” Stoke asked. “Why?”

“Because I’ve done it before,” she replied, to both of their surprise. “I’m sure you can manage things while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, course,” Stoke assured her, still getting over his shock. “Uh—”

“Go grab an axe and a few extra pair of hands,” she told him. “Start with the wood we used for blockades. We don’t need a wagon to haul that.”

“Okay. Yeah.”

Din watched the man hurry away without another word, and then looked back down at Omera. There was a challenge in her eyes, daring him to waste time and ask her irrelevant questions when there was so much work to do.

“I’ll go drop him off,” he said instead, poking the kid again. 

* * *

The wagon moved significantly slower now that it was packed with bodies, and to prevent slowing it any further, he walked behind it. 

“Please, why don’t you sit?” Omera asked him again, patting the bed beside her. “It’ll be hours yet before we stop.”

“Hurts my back to sit,” he replied. It wasn’t a lie—as long as he kept moving, nothing hurt too badly. The moment he stopped was when everything flared up again.

The concern didn’t leave her eyes. “Were you injured in the battle?”

“No,” he said, and then added, “maybe. Hard to tell. It’s been a long couple of weeks.”

“When we get back I can show you the hot springs that are nearby,” she said, pulling her feet up and placing them where she’d made room for him to sit before. “And no one outside the village knows of them, so they’re quite private.”

“I’m grateful. The hot water in my ship hasn’t worked ever since—well, it doesn’t work,” he corrected himself, not wanting to bother her with the story of the Jawas. It made his blood boil just to think about it.

She cocked her head, a wry look on her face. “Part of your long couple of weeks?”

He sighed. “It’s a really long story.”

Omera smiled. “Well, we have the time. And I haven’t heard a good story in a while.”

“Depends on what you consider a good story,” he said, but he acquiesced and began to tell her of how he’d come to meet the child. It spilled out more easily than he thought it would; the bounty, the Imperial client, Arvala-7, Kuill, the Jawas, the mudhorn, the battle at the starport—all of it. Things he’d barely had time to process himself. But it was messy; he wasn’t a good storyteller, and more than once he had to backtrack to add missing details and context, mostly prompted by Omera asking him questions. 

He talked for a long time, more than he could ever remember doing in one day. 

He even told her of leaving the kid and taking the reward. He’d admitted as much in the barn when they’d eaten together the night before, but explaining it now in full detail was difficult. He would carry the shame of it with him for years, perhaps the rest of his life. A fitting punishment. But she did not appear to judge him, or at least hid it well—she simply listened, nodding along as he explained how he’d come into his armour, how he’d nearly left before going back to the client and taking the kid away. The only thing he omitted was the covert. Even knowing they were relocating, he would not betray his clan by sharing information with an outsider. _Our survival is our strength._

“We came here to hide away until things calmed down,” he concluded. “And you know the rest.”

Omera absorbed it all with a nod, staring off into space as she processed everything he’d told her. He felt exhausted suddenly, as if retelling the events of the last few weeks had taken something out of him. Din looked up at the sky and saw that the sun had moved considerably while he’d talked, and he glanced back down sheepishly at Omera. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to take so long.”

“No, I enjoyed it,” she assured him, her chin leaning on the back of her hand, which was gripping the rail of the wagon. “Truly. You live a chaotic life.”

He laughed, surprising himself. “Yes. Though not usually quite this chaotic.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re finding peace here,” she said sardonically, and glanced back at the pile of dead Klatooinians behind her.

“It’s more peaceful than most, trust me,” he assured her. “And the kid seems to like it here.”

“Winta is completely taken with him,” she said with a smile, her eyes growing warm as she spoke of her daughter. “We haven’t had a baby in the village for a few years now, let alone a new face. She’s in the stars about it.”

 _Don’t get used to it,_ he wanted to say. _Don’t get too attached._

“She’s a good kid,” he said instead, swallowing down the sudden, foul taste in his mouth. “You’ve raised her well.”

Omera nodded at his words, in the embarrassed way most parents being praised for their children did. “Thank you. She is my joy.”

He couldn’t find anything nearly as significant to reply with, so he said nothing at all. 

“And your boy,” she continued, making him look up. “He took you leaving this time much better.”

“Thankfully,” he replied. “Just needed some encouragement, I guess.”

“He seems quite smitten with you already,” she added. 

_Don’t get used to it._

“Winta wasn’t nearly as calm,” he observed, moving the conversation away from him.

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t leave the village without her often. And with the raid—she’s not used to being alone.”

“I could’ve taken someone else,” he told her, remembering how uniquely awful it felt to leave the kid all doe-eyed and upset. 

“And miss your interesting stories?” She shook her head with a grin. “No. I’m enjoying the ride.”

He looked away. He had nothing to say to that either.

They were quiet for the rest of the trip. Omera didn’t seem to mind; she watched the trees, curled up on the wagon, and for a while she closed her eyes and took in the sounds of the forest. It was filled with the squawking of birds and dozens of other animals he couldn’t place. It was beautiful, in a way. Much nicer than the whirr of engines and clunky air filters.

Eventually Omera fell asleep, still leaning on her hand. He didn’t mean to keep staring at her, but they were facing one another and there wasn’t much elsewhere to look. 

It was the first time he noticed how intricately woven her collar crest was. The deep turquoise thread, no doubt dyed with krill oil, braided dozens of decorative knots in a shallow concave curve across the fabric that must have taken days to complete. The rest of her clothes were comparatively plain, the only exception being fine thread woven through the leather belt affixed to her waist and burdened with a large front pouch. He wondered what all the different patterns meant.

Her hands and wrists were similarly plain and without any jewellery—likely forgone for the sake of utility. Her hair made up for that lack, gathered behind her head and braided through with the same deep turquoise thread. It looked even longer now that she was curled up, the edges brushing against the wagon bed. He had the sudden, intense urge to reach out and move the ends into her lap, repulsed at the thought of her hair touching the blood and sod littering the wooden bed of the wagon.

His hands fisted at his sides instead, and he kept his eyes fixed on the forest path ahead. Focus.

By the time they reached the area she’d set the droid to drive to, it was deep into the evening, and the sun hung low in the sky. When the wagon jerked to a stop, Omera jolted awake, rubbing at her face and groaning as she unfolded her legs. 

“Din?” she murmured, pulling her hand away from her face and looking around. “We’re here?”

“Looks like.” He stood still for virtually the first time since this morning; his calves immediately burned with relief, and his feet throbbed inside his boots. 

She sat up in the wagon and gave him a once-over, and a look of growing alarm spread across her face. “You walked all this way. I’m so sorry, I should’ve—”

“It’s alright,” he said quickly. “I don’t mind.”

“Stop being polite.” She slid off the wagon and began a long, slow stretch. He quickly looked at the pile of dead raiders behind her. 

“Ugh,” she muttered, rubbing at her neck. “If it’s any consolation, that was not a pleasant sleep.”

“It’s okay, really.” He almost jokingly suggested they could switch spots on the ride back, but she was already speaking again. Too slow by half.

“We should eat,” she said, turning around to grab their pack. “Before the place smells like burning Klatooinians.”

“Good idea.” 

He kicked away the underbrush in a wide circle where they would sit and built a small fire with the kindling and wood Omera collected from nearby. Not wanting to be bothered to start a fire manually, he let several drops of propane from his vambrace’s nozzle sprinkle the wood, and then ignited it with a short blast. 

Omera raised a brow as he sat down heavily beside her. “You’ve got quite the arsenal.” 

He laid down and stretched out his back, groaning when he felt a few vertebrae pop. “It’s good to be prepared.”

He heard her laugh as she took out their meal and a pan to heat over the fire. He should probably sit up and help. 

In a minute, he decided. It had been a really long walk here.

He stared up at the sky, letting his arms spread out across the ground. The stars were just becoming visible in the early twilight, winking faintly through the trees. It was a beautiful evening, really. His helmet told him it was a balmy 14°C, and there was barely any cloud cover. He could even see Sorgan’s dual moons orbiting overhead, full and pale.

He didn’t exactly fall asleep, but his eyes lost focus and his head swam as his body burned with the relief of finally stopping. He was startled by Omera stepping into view above him several minutes later, two bowls in hand. He hadn’t even realised she’d gotten up.

She nudged him faintly with a boot to his leg. “You still awake?”

“Yes,” he said, sitting up quickly and immediately regretting it. He was glad she could not see him wincing. “Sorry.”

She only responded with a smile that suggested she knew too much, and he felt his face heat beneath his helmet as he took the bowl from her. She stepped behind him then, and sat down at his back. She was so close he could feel the warmth coming off of her, though they weren’t touching.

“Cara is already complaining about all the krill we eat,” Omera mused behind him, and he heard her spoon clatter against her bowl. He looked down at his own meal, only now fully registering that she’d handed it to him. 

“We’ll have to go hunting,” he offered automatically.

“Hm,” Omera hummed critically, and then spoke when she finished her mouthful. “It’s mostly big game in these woods. Hard to hunt. You’d have better luck collecting fungi and berries.”

“Somehow I don’t think she’ll be okay with that.”

“Or haggle in town,” she continued, “though that’s maybe more difficult than hunting.”

He nodded, his focus fracturing between her words, his meal, and how close she was sitting behind him. It was all too vibrant, too immediate. He closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled slowly.

He heard Omera set down her bowl, and her voice came through clearer as she spoke over her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” He looked up, blinking, realising he’d forgotten to answer her. “Just not used to—eating. In front of people, I mean.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “I can—I’m sorry, I should’ve asked. I can... go sit further away, if you—”

It was his turn to look over his shoulder. “No,” he assured her. “No, it’s fine.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded, and saw in his periphery that she turned back around again, her shoulders hunching. “Okay.”

He grabbed his helmet and lifted it off his head before he could think about it any longer and set it down gently beside him. “Thank you for heating this up,” he said, grabbing his bowl. “Smells good.”

“You’re easier to please than Cara, then,” Omera said, and he heard the smile in her voice.

“I eat a lot of freeze-dried rations and bar food,” he told her, “so this is a good change of pace.”

Conversation died out then, and he was too exhausted to think of anything to say. Omera never seemed that bothered by it, for which he was unspeakably grateful. He’d spent far too much time with people that couldn’t bear the sound of their own thoughts, and they often inflicted that shortcoming on him.

It was darkening quickly, and the longer they sat the more he didn’t want to stand back up again. He finished his meal quickly, and then forced himself back to the wagon. He counted thirteen dead raiders in total. 

Better get to work.

“You said,” he began, a little breathlessly as he pulled the first body off, “that you’ve done this before.”

“I did.” Omera was wiping out their bowls and packing them back up, watching him begin a pile on the ground.

He stared at her, wondering how to ask politely for more information on such a macabre subject. She seemed to pick up on his hesitation and laughed quietly after a moment.

“You are not the only one with stories to tell, Mandalorian.” She stood by the wagon now, waiting for him to grab the next one.

He shoved his arms beneath the armpits of another raider, hauling it off the wagon. She grabbed its boots before they hit the forest floor, and together they carried it over to the pile.

“Is that an offer?” he asked, rolling his shoulders when they dropped the body down. 

Her eyes were dark and full of something he couldn’t place. Longing, maybe. It was difficult to tell in the twilight. “Perhaps another time,” was all she said. 


	4. Novelty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not that she's not grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY for the slow update. And I feel like a broken record by now but thank you again for all the wonderful feedback on this fic so far!

Every day was something new. It was not an experience she wanted to become used to again—her entire life had been spent climbing towards this horizon, this village where her concerns began and ended at the trees and nothing was uncertain. She had submitted herself to a life of structured boredom because it meant stability for Winta, and she’d found a way to make that be enough. But two people who made a career out of pursuing novelty could not be housed in the village without bringing their work home with them, and it was with pleasurable dread that she woke each morning to see what particular chaos they would sow by nightfall. 

They were not always big surprises. Much of it was simply remembering Cara Dune and the Mandalorian were here—she would catch a glint of steel or the impression of Cara’s broad shadow while she tended the ponds or worked the loom or coaxed the flame in the longhall’s great firepit. They charted unknown trajectories, disrupting the natural flow of the village simply with their presence, and she could not help but be momentarily captured by these new vectors.

And then there were the other times.

It was in the deep gloaming of the day that Cara returned from her patrol of the forest. Most of the village was already asleep, and if Omera had any good sense left she would retire for the night, too. Instead she sat on the porch of the barn, watching Winta squat in the dirt and quietly look on as the Mandalorian spoke softly to the child. His legs were stretched out into a loose vee on the ground, with his boy sat in the middle and staring up at him. He spoke Mando’a, his helmet nodding gently and his hands occasionally moving to emphasise his words. But for the most part he was still, and the child watched him with rapt attention, silent and eyes wide. The winding, easy flow of Mando’a was not unlike a lullaby, and she allowed herself to admit how pleasant the sound of his voice was. 

It was nice.

Winta looked to her mother, her eyes asking for permission. She might have grown comfortable with the child, but approaching Din still required encouragement. When Omera nodded, the girl reached over and tapped his boot. 

He looked up at Winta, falling silent as his hands came to rest on his thighs. She faltered another moment, then asked: “What are you saying to him?”

He exhaled. It wasn’t a sigh—more like a stabilising breath, bracing himself for something. He looked down at the child, whose attention had been broken by the sound of Winta’s voice. He began to waddle towards her until Din placed a hand around him and scooped him back. 

“Just talking, mostly,” he said, sounding hesitant. “I speak to him in Common too often.”

“Are you teaching him Manda?”

“Mando’a,” he corrected, and she heard the smile in his voice. “And not formally.” He looked down at the child. “I’m just… talking.”

“Can you teach me?” Winta asked. 

He started at that, his helmet turning to fix on Omera. Now he was the one asking for permission.

She smiled at him. “Is that allowed?”

“I can talk to him in Man-do-a when you’re not here,” Winta continued, tapping his boot again to get his attention. “That way he can hear it all the time.”

He looked between Winta, her and the child, silent as he processed the fact that he was now the centre of conversation and was required to answer. She would never describe the man as flighty, but he seemed easily overwhelmed whenever more than one person spoke to him, especially when asked a direct question.

Winta was patient, squatting in the dirt and hugging her arms around her shins as she waited for a reply. He kept herding the child back towards him, his gloved hand braced in front of his impossibly small body. 

Before he could answer, his head cocked suddenly, his back going rigid as he looked to the forest. The child was pressed to his side in an instant as he rolled to his feet, his other hand going to Winta.

“What is it?” Omera asked, stepping down from the porch and reaching for her daughter. Startled by the movement, Winta clung to her skirts and looked at the trees with fear. 

“I don’t know,” he said. Without looking he offered the boy down to Winta, who took him and held him tightly to her chest. “Go inside.”

He grabbed his pulse rifle from the ground—it was never far away—and moved forward so effortlessly he seemed to glide across the dirt. Omera turned and hurried Winta into the barn, who huddled down under the storage deck with a practiced swiftness that made her heart ache. But she did not follow her daughter into hiding; instead she went for the Mandalorian’s things, unlatching and opening one of his weapons lockers and grabbing a gun. She seated the stock against her shoulder and checked the safety, then looked to Winta.

“Be still,” she whispered.

Winta’s eyes widened as she hugged the child to her chest. “Mama—”

“I won’t leave the barn,” she promised, then moved to the door, kneeling behind the frame and taking a deep breath. Her fingers tightened around the rifle in her hands, her heart thundering in her ears. 

She knew this fear. She would overcome it again.

Omera peered out from around the wall and looked outside. It took her a moment to process what she saw, and then she registered a deep, exasperated sigh from Din, who had laid himself flat in the long grass and pointed his pulse rifle towards the trees. 

“It’s fine,” he called over his shoulder, annoyed, and stood up to shout at the figure approaching from the trees. “What the hell are you doing?”

At first Omera had thought a great creature was emerging from the woods, broad and bristled, but as she looked down the scope of the rifle, she saw that it was Cara Dune, hauling a massive forest cat behind her. The rope in her hands was nearly as thick around as her arms, and tied tightly around the creature’s powerful neck and shoulders.

“I’m getting dinner!” she boomed back, and her laughter thundered across the plains. It was certain to wake the entire village. “No more krill for me, baby!”

Omera sagged against the wall, closing her eyes and exhaling as her heart slowed down. She set the rifle down beside her and then looked to Winta, still wide-eyed and afraid, and held out her arms. “Come here,” she beckoned, and the girl unfurled herself from her hiding place. “It’s safe.”

As Winta fell into her arms, trembling and wiping away fearful tears, Omera listened to the two warriors bicker outside. 

“You’re supposed to call ahead if you’re bringing something like that back,” Din admonished when Cara drew close, the tenor of his voice pitched low with anger.

“I don’t remember there being any rules,” she replied, sounding a little out of breath. A loud thump sounded outside as she dropped the rope in her hands. “And calm down. I just brought back some food.”

The Mandalorian scoffed, and she heard his boots clunk against the porch stairs as he headed up into the barn. Omera stood, holding Winta and the child, and he looked immediately to her.

“Are you alright?” he asked, the anger in his words from a moment ago now completely absent.

“We’re fine.” She tried to keep the furious tremor from her own voice, and smoothed her daughter’s hair down to calm herself. “We’re alright.”

His helmet dipped down, his gaze going to the rifle she’d leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t realise Dune would be coming back with—with that.” 

“It’s not your fault.” She angled Winta towards him. “Come on. Give him the child. It’s time for sleep.”

“Mama—”

“Now.”

She felt the Mandalorian’s eyes on her back as she headed towards home, confounded and sorrowful. She had told him the truth, that it was not his fault, but it was much more difficult to reason with her fury.

Some days were more challenging than others. 

It was not that she lacked gratitude. Far from it. But they were both still unknowns, introducing novelty into her life when she’d done everything she could to avoid it. Her anger found its place in their circumstances, but it was sometimes difficult to keep Cara and Din out of that crosshair. Especially when she was holding her terrified daughter in her arms, shaking with the knowledge that her safety was a fragile and easily broken luxury. Burdens no child should hold in their heart.

Winta stayed in her bed that night, huddling close and only falling asleep when Omera ran her fingers through her hair. Something sick was buried deep in her belly, keeping her awake long past midnight. 

It was fine, she told herself. They were safe. She hoped that if she repeated it enough times she would eventually believe it.

* * *

 _“You’re secure,”_ Dune’s voice came over comms. _“Rev that bad boy up.”_

He acknowledged her with a grunt and pulsed the engines of the _Razor Crest._ The acceleration shifted his centre of gravity into the pit of his stomach for a moment before the ship rocked and stopped suddenly, followed by the engines whining and a metallic groaning beneath the deck. 

“What’s happening?” he asked Cara as he eased off the engines, and flicked on the video feed from the belly of his ship. Twenty metres below was the walker, half-sunken into the krill pond and attached to his ship with two massive haulage cables. Standing around it in a loose ring were most of the villagers, and their children watched on excitedly, pointing and watching with wide eyes. Dune was standing right beside the pond, looking up at his ship.

 _“You’re still good,”_ she reported. _“Keep going.”_

“I don’t want to tear off the bottom of my ship,” he muttered, but did as she said. The acceleration hit him again, and this time when the cables went taut, his ascent only slowed instead of stopping completely.

The conversation of what to do with the walker was an ongoing one. They’d gotten as far as how to pull it out of the krill pond, but leaving it lying in the village to rust away wasn’t exactly a solution either. Omera had assured them both that they’d make do with scrapping it down to the bone for parts as long as he got it out of the water, and they’d worry about what to do with the leftovers afterwards. It had been the first semi-normal conversation he’d had with her since Dune’s ridiculous return to the village two nights before, so he’d been more than happy to help. It had meant wasting an entire day travelling by wagon back to his ship, and spending several hours lying prone in a hard wagon bed had not been good to his shoulder and ribs and back and—well, everything. But they also wouldn’t be pulling it out of the water with logs and rope and manpower, and he suspected he’d be even less use in that situation.

He heard villagers cheering come through Cara’s line as the AT-ST began to lift out of the water. The support struts beneath his ship creaked and groaned with the effort, but none of the stress alarms had triggered yet, so he reserved his worry for the moment.

 _“That’s it!”_ Dune said, laughing. _“Keep it up. Man, I forgot how big this thing was.”_

“Keep clear of the bank,” he reminded her, looking at the video feed again. “And keep the kids back. They’re too close.”

 _“They’re fine,”_ she said dismissively, but then called out a warning to the kids to move away from the pond. 

It took about twenty minutes of maneuvering and coordinating with Dune on the ground to pull the walker high enough into the air to get its legs out of the pit, and then another twenty to lay it out properly on the bank nearby. They had to situate it so that the main battery and maintenance panel were easily accessible, and that required the help of several villagers prodding the body of the walker with sticks while it was in the air until it rested exposed in the field.

 _“You’re a better pilot than I expected,”_ Dune said with satisfaction. He could see her in the feed staring up at his ship with a hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 _“It means I didn’t expect the Mandalorian skill set to be so interdisciplinary,”_ she replied. _“Come land and we can wrap this mess up.”_

“Sounds like you’re projecting,” he told her, and her only response was laughter.

He landed his ship in the field nearby. He didn’t like having it so close to the village, if only because the sound of the engines carried far across the plains, but there was less of a danger of it being looted or torn to shreds here. Again. He still really need to see a mechanic.

Din took a breath as he rolled his shoulders, consciously relaxing his body back against the pilot seat. He’d tensed up while focusing on dragging the walker around and now found himself sore and exhausted. It was troubling, how easily he became tired. He wanted to dismiss it as the natural outcome of how harrowing the last few weeks had been, but it still nagged at him. That explanation felt too easy, too simple, for the ache that clung to his bones no matter how well he rested the night before.

 _“You coming out?”_ Dune asked, and he sat up in his seat. 

“Yes. Unlatch the cables.”

He shut off comms and then the rest of his ship’s systems as the engines whirred down. Hovering in-atmosphere with an AT-ST attached to his ship had drained his fuel reserves considerably, which meant he’d have to ask the traders in the village to find fuel in town for him. He couldn’t risk going into a more populated area and being recognised.

He climbed down stiffly from the cockpit and keyed opened the bay door. He’d loaded the wagon into the cargo bay, and flicked the pilot droid awake with a finger, motioning it forward. It beeped at him angrily but positioned the wagon just before the bay doors, and he waited impatiently while it descended.

There was considerable chatter outside, and when the gangplank set down on the grass, a horde of intensely curious children were waiting for him. Winta was their vanguard, the kid in her arms and her face bright with wonder.

“Can we see your ship?” she asked.

“You’re seeing it.” He ushered the wagon out, and the droid moved it out onto the field quickly, apparently just as eager to get it off his ship as he was.

“I mean inside.” She took a step forward and toed the edge of the ramp, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

He considered the dual stare of her and the kid in her arms, and then sighed. “Fine. But don’t touch anything, and not all at—”

His instructions were immediately lost in the din of squealing children, who rushed the cargo bay en masse. They shoved past him as they climbed inside, already going to cabinets, storage netting, control panels—everything and anything inside the cargo bay. Questions were asked so rapid fire he barely heard half of them.

“What’s this?”

“The back tube. Don’t—”

“Why do you have so many guns?”

“Put that—”

“How do you open this?”

“What does this button do?”

“Why do you have nets on your ceiling?”

“Can I fly the ship?”

“Where does this ladder go?”

“How does this—”

Chaos. He could hear his own heartbeat as his blood pressure ticked up considerably, and their parents were apparently useless, distracted by the walker. He clenched his teeth.

“You can’t all be in my ship!” he called out, and barely heard himself over the cacophony of giggling, whispering, and a hundred other invasive and ridiculous questions.

Enough of this.

Through the throng of children he waded to the bay door panel and slammed his palm down on the emergency lights, and then flicked on the internal alarm. He had installed it for the express purpose of spooking bounties that were too nosy or talkative, but it was also very effective in scaring the dozen children all crammed into the bay. 

The response was instantaneous—all of them clamped their hands to their ears (with the exception of Winta, who thankfully did not drop the kid)—and ran for the gangplank, yelling in confusion. He waited a full sixty seconds before shutting it off, only doing so once they all exited the ship and stood far enough away that they wouldn’t rush back in the moment it was quiet.

“You don’t listen,” he said as he stepped down the ramp, “you don’t get to go in my ship.”

The children stared at him in bewilderment, unsure of how to respond. He looked to the other villagers, who had been drawn over by the obnoxious klaxon.

“Can we go back in now?” Winta finally ventured. 

“No. Maybe later.”

Ignoring the groans of protest that followed, he let the bay door lift back up and nodded to Caben, Stoke, and two others he couldn’t recall the names of—all of them had helped herd the walker onto the grass with sticks.

“Thanks for the help,” he said, nodding to the walker. He didn’t add that they should have a better handle on their children. He wasn’t exactly in a position to criticise.

“Thanks right back,” Caben said, looking over to the AT-ST. “Think we can get anything useful out of that thing?”

“Don’t know yet.”

He walked over to the walker, still connected to the ship, and found Dune on top of it, pulling at one of the cables.

“What’s the hold up?”

“Don’t get pushy,” she replied, not looking up. “I secured these things tight for a reason. Come help me.”

Ignoring the impulse to tell her this was her portion of the job, he put a foot up on one of the legs and grabbed for a handhold to hoist himself up. 

Or tried to.

It wasn’t a crack, exactly. More like a tear, but it rolled down the length of his back with incredible speed and force, and sent him falling backwards onto the ground as he lost control of the muscles in his back. The impact triggered more searing tears, making his spine seize up. His throat closed up from the pain, but he managed to let out a terrible groan that got Dune’s attention.

“Hey!” She jumped down nimbly from the walker—another thing that made him jealous—and knelt down beside him, alarm spreading across her face. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

“My back,” he rasped, the back of his helmet pushing into the dirt as his spine arched painfully upwards. “Felt something—tear.”

“Can you stand?”

He blew out a breath and shook his head—very, very carefully. It jarred his spine. “Not a good idea.”

In his periphery he saw Omera step out from behind the walker, drawn to the sudden commotion. When she spotted him on the ground her face scrunched in concern, and she stood over Cara to look down at him.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, wiping her hands on her frock. He saw grease on them, the kind that came off of hydraulic pistons.

“I don’t know,” he said unhelpfully. Of course he was. “Muscle spasm, maybe.”

His back continued to seize, clenching into columns of hard marble. He tried to keep his breathing slow and even, because every time he drew in breath it caused a new wave of pain.

“We can flip you,” Dune said, looking up at Omera. “Take a look at what’s going on.”

“No—”

“If there’s denting in your skin then you need to go see a doctor immediately,” she continued, more loudly now that he’d tried to interrupt her. “I’m not gonna look at your face, don’t worry.”

“Do not flip me,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just—give me a minute.”

He was aware of people gathering around him, their murmuring turning concerned. Winta came up close, the kid wriggling and cooing in her arms. He was reaching down for him, struggling against her grip.

“Stay, Fuzzy,” she said, petting his head. “What’s happening, mama?”

“It’s alright,” Omera assured her, smiling at her daughter. Then she turned to the gathering throng. “Go back to your business! We will tend the walker later. Thank you for your help in getting it into the field.”

His focus was fixed onto the kid, who was squirming around fiercely and making more insistent noises of protest. Winta put him down with a frown, and he immediately waddled over to him, hands outstretched.

Din tested his hand, slowly uncurling his fingers. Those worked, and didn’t hurt too badly. He beckoned the kid to his hand with a finger, and he followed, his tiny hands wrapping around his index finger. 

“I’m okay,” he whispered to him. He swore the kid looked afraid. “It’s okay.”

He only stared back, his claws digging into the fabric of his glove. It was mesmerising. 

“Not okay enough, clearly,” Dune said by his other side, snapping him back to reality. “Can you move your legs?”

He closed his eyes and focused. “My feet,” he replied after a moment, testing them. “Toes. I can bend my knees. Yeah.” He didn’t move anything above that, not wanting to risk agitating the base of his spine.

The concerned look on Dune’s face didn’t go away. “Did our fight at the bar do this?”

“Mudhorn,” he replied. “But the fight didn’t help.”

“You fought a mudhorn,” she said, more a statement of disbelief than a question.

“Yes,” he said impatiently. “That’s not really the point—”

“You need to go to the springs,” Omera cut in, giving him a once-over and shaking her head. “We can move you there in the wagon.”

He didn’t attempt to nod again. “Okay.”

“We can drag him,” Dune said, somewhat doubtfully. She reached out and tapped her knuckles against his chest plate. “Your armour is pretty heavy.”

“I’m aware. Help me up.”

“No. Out of the way, little guy.” Cara directed the last part to the kid, and shooed him back with a hand. 

“What are you doing?”

“Loading you onto the wagon,” she said, her tone hard and removing all opportunity for argument. 

He tried anyway.

“I can stand—”

“Not advisable. Omera, grab his legs.”

“No—”

“Shut _up,”_ she ordered forcefully, hooking her arms underneath his armpits. He heard her call over the wagon, but the pain of moving made his head swim.

He saw Omera by his feet, and when they lifted him up into the air, his vision pinpointed to wobbling stars.


	5. Thank You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's always thanking her, and it's never enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you gotta spend quality time with ur dad at the pool while he flirts with the local widow

He woke up groaning.

The sky above him was bright and clear, the sun filtering through the trees and lighting everything a grey-emerald hue. Its beauty did not detract from how much pain he was in, but it was at least pleasant to look at.

“You’re awake,” Omera said quietly, and he looked over to see her walking beside the wagon, her hand gripping one of the rails. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” he said dumbly, not sure how else to respond. “Where’s…?”

“You passed out when we loaded you onto the wagon,” Omera explained, a frown furrowing her brow. “We’re headed to the springs, and Cara is back at the village to look after the walker.”

He relaxed a little. As long as one of them stayed in the village, everyone would be safe.

“Good,” he whispered.

“Not good,” she replied. “You’re a mess.”

He couldn’t argue that point and didn’t try to. Omera looked away, focusing on the path ahead. 

He listened to the wagon rattle and the birds screech overhead, and nothing else besides those two things. The silence between them was different from before. Tension made his eardrums pop, and words came even less easy to him now. He should say thank you, he thought. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That’s all he ever said to her. 

_I’m sorry_ wasn’t much better.

The silence continued while he thought. He was convinced the droid was driving rough on purpose, because he never remembered there being so many bumps during the other trips. Each one jarred his back and made him grit his teeth, but the pain wasn’t quite as bad as when he’d first fallen off the walker. It still hurt to breathe and move and be alive, but his vision and head had cleared. 

There was a rustling by his side, and he angled his helmet on the cushion beneath him to find the kid sat against one of the rails, watching him. Two tiny hands were wrapped around his index finger.

“He’s coming with us?” he asked, wiggling his finger and watching the kid rock faintly with the movement.

“No choice,” Omera explained. “He threw himself into a full tantrum when Winta tried to take him back to the hut.”

“You can’t come in the water with me,” he said to the kid, watching as two big ears perked up at the sound of his voice. “It’s too hot for babies.”

The kid only made a contented mumbling sound as he settled back against the rail and stared out at the forest path behind them.

He looked to Omera. “How is Winta?”

“She’s fine,” she replied curtly, not looking at him. When she didn’t elaborate, he nodded and looked back up at the sky. That was the end of the conversation.

The feeling of people being angry with him was not an unfamiliar one. He usually enjoyed it, as long as they weren’t shooting at him. Angry people didn’t tend to fill the space with annoying banter. 

But just like the silence, this was different, too.

Eventually he settled on an apology. It wasn’t original, but it was warranted given the circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. 

For a while he thought Omera simply hadn’t heard him, or was perhaps ignoring him, but then she looked down into his visor, and he felt her gaze hit him with full force. 

“For scaring Winta,” he continued, and saw her eyes widen slightly. He paused. Perhaps he’d miscalculated. He cleared his throat and tried again. “That’s why you’re angry, right?”

She let out a long sigh, shaking her head gently, though he didn’t think it was in protest of his words. “It’s not your fault,” she said, just as quietly. “We hired you to protect us. I couldn’t have—” Her mouth twisted. “I couldn’t have asked for better warriors.”

“I’m not doing it for the money.” He shifted around, trying to ease some of the pressure on his back. The beskar was far more comfortable than his old armour, but he was still lying on steel plating. “Or the lodging. You and your daughter deserve to be safe.”

She didn’t say anything for a while again, and there was nothing else he could add to the silence that would help. 

The walk to the spring was short, and they arrived shrouded in that same tense, cloaked silence. He heard the droid beep and Omera thank it, and then she came around to the back of the wagon to appraise him critically.

“How much can you move?”

“I can get up,” he assured her, far less confident than his words let on. He shook the kid free of his hand and grabbed both railings, testing his strength with a flex. He suppressed a groan. “Slowly,” he added hoarsely.

Omera rolled her eyes and walked around the side, up by his head, and reached into the wagon. He felt her hands, broad and warm, slide under both of his shoulders. “Keep a hold on the rails,” she ordered. “I’m going to lift you.”

“It’s okay—”

“This will go faster if you listen to me.”

He wanted to smile, but there was a dangerous edge in her voice that told him this was not a negotiation. Instead he nodded and said: “Okay. On three?”

She counted to three and then lifted. He was surprised by the power in her grip, though he wasn’t sure why. She’d proven herself more than capable in any task she’d set to thus far, and though she didn’t cut an imposing figure like Cara did, there was real strength behind her movements.

He helped as best he could, pulling slowly, gently as she pushed him. He heard her grunt with the effort, but eventually he was sitting upright (and still conscious) in the wagon bed, his legs now dangling over the edge. They were both breathing hard, and when Omera walked around to face him, her face was flushed with effort.

“Now,” she breathed, “your armour. We have to get it off.”

His heart jumped, making his words come out stilted. “I can do it—please,” he insisted, seeing her face scrunch with impatience. “I have to be the one to do it.”

She looked at the ground for a moment, then nodded. “Alright,” she said, and offered her hand. “At least let me help you to the spring.”

He took her outstretched fingers and stood up very slowly, letting out a low hiss of breath as he straightened out his back. The kid cooed and struggled to his feet, waddling towards the end of the bed. Having enough sense by now not to trust him to stay put, he picked up the kid instead with his free arm.

Din tried not to lean on her too heavily, but her grip was as sure as ever, and walking was a specific sort of hell that made keeping his balance a challenge. _Stupid,_ he thought to himself. Stupid to let himself become this weak. 

The sight of the spring in front of them took him aback, bringing him out of his pained stupor. Steam rolled across its quiet surface, and his helmet fogged from the moisture in the air. The hot spring wasn’t large, perhaps only as wide around as the longhall in the village, and its surface was a still and smooth blue-grey.

“You’ll have to walk in slowly, on the right side of the bank,” she advised. “But it’s deep enough to stand up to your neck in.”

He nodded, momentarily captured by the puffs of roiling steam. It was difficult to remember the last time he’d been this close to hot water, and he could already feel the muscles in his back unbinding.

They stopped a few feet from the edge and he took a deep breath. “This might take a while,” he said, looking down at himself. 

She nodded, letting her hand fall away from his. Omera took the kid from him and set him down by his side, then stepped away. “I’ll be by the wagon.”

“You’re staying?” he asked, pulling off his gloves and letting them fall to the ground beside him. He couldn’t turn to watch her walk away, so he kept his gaze forward. The kid picked at the bandolier on his boot.

“Leaving a critically injured man alone in a body of water is not exactly safe,” she called back, and he heard the wagon creak as she sat down on the edge. It was close by, only several feet away. “Especially with a child in tow.”

A knot formed in his throat as he glanced down again at his armour. This was not just them sitting in the barn together eating dinner. This wasn’t even in the same orbit.

And, he knew, there was also nothing to be done about it. She was right, and short of tracking down the new location of the covert to seek medical aid, he didn’t have a lot of other options. 

“Do you need help?” she asked, and he realised he’d been standing there staring down at himself for a few minutes now, unmoving.

“No.” He swallowed hard and began to remove the cuisses strapped to each thigh, since they involved the least amount of shoulder movement to access. 

It was a lengthy and brutal process. In good health, it could take him upwards of fifteen minutes to remove everything completely, but now it was nearly double that. The cuirass, vambraces, and cuisses came off more or less without struggle, but his boots would be difficult, and he hadn’t even begun to formulate a plan as to how he would remove his backplate. Or shrug out of his under-padding and linens. 

Or get back into all of it.

He was breathing hard and sweating in his helmet by the time he stripped most of his beskar off, and his arms shook with the effort of moving so much. The pain in his back had become acute again, shooting strips of lightning up his spine every time he moved any more than a few inches. 

The kid thankfully behaved himself, eventually sitting down near his gear and passing the time by touching the shiny spots of his armour where the sunlight hit the steel.

When he tried to reach over his shoulder to get at the clasps of his backplate, his back erupted in agony and he clenched his teeth around a groan. There was no way. His pauldrons had been difficult enough to pull off.

Omera hadn’t spoken the entire time, and he knew she wasn’t watching him. He looked at the ground, breathing through the pain and speaking hoarsely around the lump in his throat. “Can you—can you—”

“What do you need?” he heard her say from the wagon, alert and ready. 

“My backplate,” he whispered, hoping she could hear him. It was an effort to speak. “I can’t reach the clasps.”

“Of course.”

Her footsteps were faint on the crush of rotting leaves and thick grass, and he felt her presence behind him almost immediately. Her hand came up to his shoulder and rested there, and her voice was much closer now, much softer. “Where should I begin?”

“The bottom two,” he said, closing his eyes. “The clasps are by my hips.”

“I’ll have to remove your cloak first,” she told him, and he nodded.

Her hands worked around his neck and shoulders, unfurling the fabric of his cloak. He listened to her set it down gently next to the kid, and then felt her fingers by his right hip, prying open the clasp with a faint creak of steel against leather. Then she unhooked the other one and went to his shoulders, finally pulling the plate off and letting a rush of cool air take up its place. 

“The rest,” she said as she set the plate down in the grass. “You can’t hold your arms up?”

“No.”

She was silent for a moment, and the light moved by his right as she stepped into view. He opened his eyes and looked up at her, her face startlingly grim.

“How do you seek aid if you’re hurt?” she asked.

“I go back to—I find my clan,” he responded, trying to keep his breathing even. His heart was beating so hard it was difficult to hear her.

“And if you cannot get to them?”

He wanted to shrug, but couldn’t. He sighed instead. “I try to avoid getting hurt,” he concluded.

Her lips pursed into a thin line as she thought. He could see her struggling, looking for words that were not judgemental. 

He cleared his throat and spoke again. “The _Resol’nare_ is followed by all,” he told her, and her expression relaxed as she listened. “But we’re given latitude in how we observe it when the need permits.”

“And does the need permit me to help you out of your armour?” she asked, and there was a hint of amusement in her voice.

He answered it with his own. “It’s probably a good idea, yeah.”

Her face broke into a smile, the first one he’d seen in two days that was not marred by fury, and he couldn’t help the responding one that spread across his face, even if she couldn’t see it.

* * *

Despite his permission to allow her to help, he did an awful lot of grumbling.

“Keep your arm straight,” she instructed, rolling down the thick padded fabric of his armour’s bodysuit. She was being as gentle as she could be, but his gear was built to cling to his body, and peeling it off while injured was no easy feat.

“I am,” he protested, letting out a pained hiss as she got his sleeve past his elbow. Beneath his bodysuit were plain linens—flimsy underclothes that looked like they could use a good wash. They only covered what they needed to, which meant his arms and shoulders were bare beneath the suit.

She kept her eyes strictly on the fabric in her hands. He was still quite hesitant, flinching if she went too quickly, and not only because of the pain. Whatever vow he’d taken as a Mandalorian to shield himself from the eyes of others was one he kept with complete devotion, and this was clearly very difficult for him. 

Still, his stubbornness was doing a number on her patience, and it was even more difficult not to lose her temper than it was to take off his ridiculously stiff bodysuit.

He finally freed his left arm with a tug, and then nodded to her. The bodysuit hung from his right shoulder, the back pulled open to his waist. “Thank you,” he said, his face still obscured by his helmet. “I can get the rest off.”

She nodded, deciding not to challenge him on that. “Once you’re properly stripped, I’ll wash your clothes.”

“You don’t—”

“I will,” she assured him. “They need to be cleaned.”

He looked at her, not saying anything. Eyes firmly on his helmet, she reminded herself. 

“I’ll take them in with me,” he bargained, but his voice ticked up at the end, a betrayal of his uncertainty.

She scoffed. “You can barely move,” she reminded him. “How are you going to scrub your gear clean?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Well,” she said, taking several steps away from him and facing towards the wagon, “once you’re done figuring it out, give them to me and I will wash them.”

The silence that followed was disgruntled, but he didn’t bother her any further about it. She listened to him struggle and grunt as he got the rest of his bodysuit off, and his boots made a series of dull thuds as he shook them clear of his feet. Omera sat down on the grass while he pulled himself out of his gear, looking at the path that lead back to the village. She’d made sure to tell the others not to disturb them unless necessary, and had resolutely ignored the brow-waggling grin Cara had given her at the warning.

Finally, she heard him remove his helmet, as he let out a long, strained hiss of breath while reaching up to grab it from his head. Curiosity took hold of her as she wondered why his face held such particular significance, why his body was not considered just as sacred and in need of hiding from others, and why his helmet above all was not a thing to be removed by any other living thing in this world, no matter how pressing the circumstances. She wanted to ask, but held back, stayed by a sense of propriety and perhaps apprehension. It was not always better to know the answer.

“Is it okay for Fuz—for the child to see you?” Winta’s nickname was catching on, but she hoped that was all it would be. To go through life with a name like Fuzzy would be a terrible burden.

“Yes,” he said, though his voice was full of doubt. “Foundlings are permitted to see their guardians.”

She got the feeling he was not speaking to her, but she didn’t press him on that either.

The edge of the water rippled as it was disturbed, and she realised he was stepping into the spring. She wanted desperately to turn around, to help guide him in, because the last thing she wanted to do was pull his body out of the spring, but she settled for warning him with a measured “be careful” instead.

“I will,” he replied, all traces of levity now gone from his voice. She swore she even heard a faint tremor to his words, but she could easily be mistaken. 

Omera listened to him slip carefully into the water, his breathing harsh and laboured as he waded further into the spring. She knew from experience how hot the water was and envied him deeply. Well, sort of. She wasn’t in a hurry to injure her back. But it had been a while since she’d visited the springs, and the faint smell of sulphur that wafted over the water’s surface was strangely nostalgic.

“It’s hot,” he observed, exhaling as he settled into the water, and then she heard him warning the child away from the water’s edge with a quiet murmur.

“Yes,” she replied, smiling. “It is a hot spring.”

“It’s just—” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been having a lot of cold showers lately. You are not coming in,” he added then, and she heard the child coo.

“How is your back?”

“Check back with me in an hour,” he said, and she could already hear the growing lull in his voice. “I’ll let you know then.”

“You can’t stay in there that long,” she warned him, resting her chin on her knees. “You’ll raise your body temperature too drastically.”

He made a dismissive noise that indicated he wasn’t worried about it for now. She turned her head enough to look at his gear, still laid out by the water’s edge. Apparently he’d already forgotten his insistence on cleaning it himself, though she couldn’t ask to wash his things without instigating another argument.

Omera sighed and laid back in the grass, staring up at the sky. “You know,” she began, the thread of their earlier conversation pulling into the forefront of her mind. “It cost me my husband for us to be here. Winta and I, I mean.”

She heard the water go still as he froze, listening to her speak. “I’m sorry,” he said after a pause, an echo of the expression of helpless grief she’d offered to him, back when they first met in the barn and he’d told her of his parents’ death. That seemed like it had happened in another age.

“It’s alright,” she said up to the sky, letting her arms spread out on the grass. “It was a long time ago.”

He made a noise low in his throat, a sound of disagreement. “Doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”

“No,” she admitted. “But it’s easier to bear now.”

He said nothing to that. The water moved again, and she couldn’t help but remember the impression of lean muscle beneath pale, scarred skin as she’d rolled down his sleeve. It hit her suddenly that he was completely naked behind her, only a few feet away. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so close to a naked man before. It was strangely underwhelming, as if this was how it ought to be. 

She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, feeling some of the fury that had taken ahold of her heart drain away. “I bring it up to say—to say that I have been cold to you,” she told him. “I’m sorry for that.”

“I understand,” he replied. “You want to feel safe.”

“Not me,” she corrected him. “Winta. I had hoped she’d—” She felt her throat close up. “I had hoped,” she repeated with a whisper, “that she would grow up in this village, completely clueless to the rest of the world. That she would live her entire life in this forest and be buried right beside me. And I cannot even give her that.”

“No child can have that,” he said, responding more quickly and with more certainty than she thought he would. “It’s not something you can promise.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But I wanted to try. And now she is asking me to teach her how to shoot and wear armour and speak Mando’a. She has no desire to be clueless.”

This time he was quiet, the water going still once more. For the dozenth time she wished she could look at him, to read his body language if not his face. 

“She already has a life here,” he told her. “She has a family.”

 _She cannot be a Mandalorian_ was what he meant. It was a relief to hear the admission, though she hadn’t been expecting any different.

“But,” he continued, hesitating a little, “it might be a good idea to teach her how to shoot.”

Omera smiled. “It might,” she agreed with a sigh. Safety was not innocence, but maybe it would be enough anyway.

“And I can teach her how to speak Mando’a,” he said, more quietly this time. “I have to teach the kid anyway, and he never leaves her side.”

“You can teach outsiders your language?”

She heard him exhale, his breath coming out almost shakily. “She takes care of him,” he whispered, his voice thick with effort as he spoke around all the other words he did not say. “You all do. There is no way to repay that.”

The bloom of warmth spreading in her chest was something that ran deeper than simple empathy. To be without kin or clan to turn to while caring for a child was an experience she wished on no other living thing. She’d done well to bury the memory of it, but it came flooding back now, and whatever residual anger she held onto melted away.

Most of all, she wanted to turn and look at him, and the denial of that desire sat with a deep ache beneath her ribs.

“How is your back?” she rasped.

* * *

For awhile he drifted. Not literally—he kept himself near the shore, his feet always close to the spring floor if not touching it directly. But the heat and the rhythmic lapping of the water against his bare skin was an unquantifiable pleasure, and coupled with his exhaustion, it made it difficult to stay fully conscious.

The kid eventually stopped trying to get into the water with him when he offered him a marbled pebble to play with. It had instantly captured the kid’s attention, and thankfully he didn’t seem keen on shoving it into his mouth. With that worry properly dealt with, Din made a half-hearted attempt to clean himself while he was in the water, scrubbing his hands against the mottling of bruises and scrapes across his body. It was infinitely better than the cold burst-spray shower inside the bay of his ship in every conceivable way. If they were going to be here for a couple of months, he would be sure to make use of this spring as much as he could. 

Omera hadn’t spoken in a long time, and at one point—he couldn’t pinpoint when—he turned back to the shore to find her gone, along with his gear. She’d left the beskar, but his under padding and linens had disappeared. He should have been alarmed, or even chagrined that she was cleaning his things for him, but only mild surprise manifested. 

The entire shoreline of the spring wasn’t visible from where he was; trees ringed the pool of water, obscuring much of its edge, and the mist acted as a considerable noise buffer. She could be washing his clothes by the bank, only metres away, and he wouldn’t know.

“You see where she went?” he asked the kid, who looked up from his pebble at the question. He waded to the edge of the bank and placed another rock in the grass—he’d stepped on it earlier, and this one was much larger and more jagged, with jet-black streaks interspersed with glittering copper. 

The kid dropped the pebble in his grasp and reached for the new one, cooing in wonder. He would clearly be no help.

“Omera?” he called, and even the air coming out of his lungs tasted warm. He should probably get out and cool off for a while.

“I’m here,” she called back, though it was difficult to figure out where the sound had come from. “You should step out of the water and let your body cool. I left a blanket by the bank for you.”

“Thank you.” He moved over to the part of the shore where he didn’t have to climb to get out and began to wade out of the water. The moment the air came into contact with his skin, a shudder rocked through him, jarring his spine and making him duck back into the spring for a moment. 

He repeated the process a few times, moving gingerly out of the water and suppressing any accompanying shivers as best he could. He went straight for the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders when he got out, uncaring that he was dripping water everywhere. Sitting down by the bank’s edge beside the kid and curling into a loose ball under the thick fabric, he scrubbed his hair dry with the excess blanket in both hands, and then let out a long, slow breath. 

Now that he could see his body properly and had a slightly better range of motion, he took stock of his injuries, poking and prodding himself to test the give of his bruised skin. Layers of bruises covered his ribs, hips, and thighs, deep purple and blue outlined with green and yellow. Thankfully there was little in the way of open wounds, only a few minor cuts and scrapes that were easily remedied with a bit of rubbing alcohol and bandages. And most of his joints were okay—a few sore knuckles, a swollen knee, a sensitive shoulder joint. All manageable, and more than easy to ignore now that he’d been submerged in hot water for a while.

Then there was his back. 

It still hurt, considerably, but it was a dull throb now—his nerves were no longer on fire, settling into a deeper ache that hindered rather than immobilised. This wasn’t the first time he’d injured his back, but it was the first he’d had to nurse it on little more than a hot spring and rest. 

“I’m heading back over,” he heard Omera announce, and his hand reached reflexively for the helmet by his side as he pulled the blanket closed. The steel was cool against his bare palm. 

He closed his eyes and thought, trying to slow his rising heartbeat. It would be ridiculous to put it on, especially with damp hair. Curling up in a ball under the blanket seemed equally ridiculous. 

His decision was made for him when she appeared behind him, walking out of the trees, and with his heart in his throat his head snapped back towards the spring. He could hear her moving around by the path, and the wet slap of clothes being hung over the wagon rail made it easy to locate her.

“Your things should take some time to dry,” she told him, and he heard the wagon creak again as she sat down on the bed. “I should have grabbed an extra pair of clothes,” she muttered then, more to herself than him.

“It’s alright,” he said, wiping his face with the blanket as his shoulders sagged. She wasn’t looking. She hadn’t seen him. “And—thank you. Again.”

It wasn’t enough, the words were never enough, but they were all he had to give her.

* * *

She couldn’t remember at what point she’d fallen asleep in the grass, but when she woke up the sun hung low in the sky, casting everything in a deep honey yellow. Omera wiped at her eyes and sat up, looking around. Then she remembered herself and cast her gaze to the ground. “Din?” she said, not looking up.

“Here,” he responded, his voice incredibly close. It also carried with it the familiar modulation of his helmet’s mic, and she looked up to see him standing by the wagon, now fully clothed and garbed in most of his armour again.

“You dressed,” she observed, not bothering to keep the surprise out of her voice. “How are you feeling?”

“A lot better,” he said, securing the cloak around his shoulders. Then he stepped in front of her and offered a hand down. 

She waved him off and stood up by herself, not wanting to aggravate his back. He smelled of steel and the soap she’d used on his clothes, and more importantly, he was no longer standing stiffly with his left shoulder held hunched forward and his head bowed. 

“You look better,” she told him, and glanced over at the wagon. The child was sitting near the edge of the bed, absorbed with turning a small collection of rocks around in his hands. The blanket she’d given him was folded up neatly beside him. “How long did I sleep?”

“A few hours.”

“We should head back, then.” She moved towards the wagon, her mind going to Winta. She hoped she wasn’t worrying.

“I just—” He began, and then paused when she turned to look at him. “My backplate. It’s the only part I can’t reattach.”

“Of course. Turn around.”

She grabbed the plate off of the wagon bed and then swept his cloak over one of his shoulders so she could access the clasps. Even from behind she could tell he was standing straighter, more relaxed than before.

“I told you the springs were wonderful,” she said with a smile, hooking the plate to the straps that ran beneath his pauldrons. 

He was quiet while she affixed the backplate to his bodysuit, but when she pulled his cloak back around he turned to face her. He also reached out and grabbed her arm, startling her into immobility.

“I want…” he started, then exhaled. “Thank you isn’t enough.”

She could feel the intense warmth of his hand even through his glove and her frock. It must be the residual heat from the springs. “Of course it is.” 

“No,” he insisted, his voice low but no less forceful. “No it isn’t.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Her eyes darted across his helmet, and even with the sun low and shining brightly, she could not see beneath the deep black tint of his visor. He’d gone incredibly still, and didn’t even seem to be breathing.

“People have been asking to see my face my entire life,” he explained, his words so soft she had to strain to hear them. “And you look away.”

“I don’t want to ruin your life,” she whispered, the words coming out with a nervous laugh. 

He shook his head and his helmet tipped up, away from her as he continued to speak. “Your daughter takes care of the kid, and now you’re—you brought me here.” He swallowed audibly. “Thank you.”

She pressed her hands to the soft space between his pauldrons and his chestplate, and his head tilted back to her as she looked up at him. He wasn’t much taller than her, but this close, she had to tip her chin up to meet his eyes—even if she couldn’t see them.

“You’ve brought us peace, and Winta is safe,” she told him. “There is no debt for you to repay here.”

“Job’s not done yet,” he replied thickly.

Her smile wobbled, but she kept a hold of it. “Then we should head back.”

“Okay,” he whispered. His hand lingered on her arm, a moment too long to be called hesitation, and then fell to his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	6. Useful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s not used to not being useful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME back to ur irregular and unscheduled weekly programming. thanks again for all the lovely comments, ur all beautiful and i hope you have a sexy weekend

It was dark inside the barn despite the bright sun, and her hands were shaking.

Her fingers tightened around the tray in her hands as she took a deep breath. There was nothing to be afraid of. Mama had promised her that the Mandalorian was not a mean man, and deep down inside she knew that. But his armour was large and he carried his gun around with him wherever he went and he always spoke like he wasn’t happy. It was hard to know for sure because he never showed his face, either. 

But Fuzzy was also inside the barn, she reminded herself, and Fuzzy was _always_ nice. 

Winta ducked through curtains covering the door and squinted into the dim light. There was a small monitor set up on the table by the door, the screen showing a map of what looked like their village, with little red blips scattered around the edges. Her caution still outweighed her curiosity, so she tore her eyes away and looked at the cots set up near the storage deck. Cara’s was empty, but the Mandalorian was still in his, laying flat on his back with his hands folded together at his waist. He looked like a sculpture, he was so still. She paused by the door, watching his chest until she saw it rise and then fall before taking a few steps inside.

She glanced down at Fuzzy’s crib, and her eyes widened when she saw that he wasn’t there. Winta set down the tray of food on the table and then fell to her hands and knees to look under the crib. “Psst!” she whispered, pulling the crib skirt up. “Where are you?”

There was a coo towards the back of the barn, and she looked up to see a lump moving around by the Mandalorian’s side, swaddled beneath his cloak. She stood up and dusted her hands off on her pants, watching as the lump unfolded and green ears poked out from beneath the fabric. Then two dark eyes opened, and Fuzzy babbled at her.

“Hey,” she said as quietly as she could, slowly approaching the Mandalorian’s cot. Fuzzy moved around some more, pulling his tiny hands out from the cloak and reaching up towards her. Winta tried to step only on the floorboards that wouldn’t creak, holding her breath as she walked. The Mandalorian remained still, his chest moving up and down slowly. Mama had taught her that trick—watch for how people breathe, because it gave a lot away.

She got to the side of the cot, still holding her breath, eyes fixed to the Mandalorian’s unmoving helmet. She paused and counted to fifteen, and when he still didn’t move, she reached down and picked up Fuzzy, doing her best not to tug on his cloak. Fuzzy continued to babble happily, his hands going to her hair to tug on it. 

Winta walked backwards carefully, just as silent as her approach. When she got to the middle of the barn again, she exhaled and looked down at Fuzzy, rocking him in her arms. 

“Are you hungry?” she whispered to him. “You want some food?”

His only response was more cooing, which she took as a yes. She probably shouldn’t feed him from the tray of food she’d brought in, so Winta headed for the door, relieved to have an excuse to leave. Deliver his breakfast, Mama had told her, and that’s exactly what she’d done. Technically. 

She was almost to the barn door when she heard the cot shift, followed by a low, long hiss of breath. Winta hugged Fuzzy more tightly to her chest and turned around, bracing herself.

The Mandalorian’s hands moved as he patted the bed by his side, where Fuzzy had been sleeping, then he sat up quickly on an elbow when he found only his cloak. The movement made him hiss again. 

“Hi,” she said too loudly as he struggled to sit upright. She pointed at the table. “I brought some food.”

His breathing had definitely changed. It was coming out in laboured, stilted exhales now, like it was hurting him. When he sat up in the cot and planted his feet on the floor, his helmet tipped up to the ceiling before he went still again. He looked tense, and his hands gripped the rail of the cot so hard she heard the frame creak.

And he still hadn’t said anything.

“Um,” she hummed, and his helmet turned towards her. “I’m gonna take Fuzzy to eat.”

He nodded, a single soft movement that she would’ve missed if she hadn’t been staring at him. 

Every part of her wanted to leave the uncertain silence in the barn and run to the longhall with Fuzzy, where Turen and Balif and all the other kids would be, but she knew her mother would ask her how the Mandalorian was doing and she wouldn’t have an answer, because now he was awake and looked like he was in a lot of pain.

“Are you okay?” she asked, watching him hunch over, his elbows planting on his knees and his head hanging low as he stretched out his back. He’d taken a lot of his armour off, which was piled up beside his bed, but his helmet and bodysuit were still on. She wondered if they were uncomfortable to sleep in.

“I’m okay,” he replied, his voice strained. “Thank you for the food. Is your mother alright?”

She frowned for a moment before catching his meaning. “Oh yeah, she’s just really busy this morning.” They’d started scrapping the walker yesterday, and Mama had gotten up early to continue it today. She’d looked really tired, but Winta decided to leave that part out. 

He only nodded again at that, and Winta decided that she could finally leave the barn guilt-free. She escaped quickly, Fuzzy hugged close to her chest as she tossed a rushed “goodbye!” over her shoulder.

* * *

She was starting to think that Cara and Din had destroyed the AT-ST a little _too_ well.

The most disappointing find so far was the fried battery. An intact one alone was worth an entire season’s harvest, even if they would have to pay for the fuel and fare needed to fly to a buyer that would have the money to purchase it. 

But this one was far from intact. Aside from the water damage, the central cell was punctured and had already leaked enough acid to corrode the coils wrapped around it. They would be lucky if they got money for the casing.

Omera sat back on her heels and watched as Sora and Fahl sorted through the scrap heaps. The field around the walker had been covered with tarps borrowed from the Mandalorian’s ship, and they were all slowly filling up with panels, hydraulic pistons, and anything else that looked halfway salvageable. Scrapping was dirty work, and she’d dressed for it—a heavy poncho had gone over her frock, and thick gloves covered her up to the elbows. In the bright summer sun, she was sticky with sweat.

The sunlight over her shoulder went dark, disrupting her thoughts, and she looked up to find Cara standing on the walker, holding one of its undercarriage guns in her arms.

“How’s that look?” she asked.

“Firing mechanism works,” Cara replied, jumping down and setting the gun in the grass beside them. The barrel itself was thicker around than Omera’s torso. “Wouldn’t sell this in town, though.”

“No, we’ll have to fly out of system to sell most of this.” 

“You know a place?”

“A few,” Omera admitted, watching Cara sit down and lean next to the walker’s open maintenance panel. She wiped at her own sweaty hair and huffed out a tired breath. “My husband was a scrapper for many years. Picked up a few things from him.”

Cara raised a brow at that and Omera pretended not to notice. She looked down at the battery in front of her instead, shaking her head at the state of it. “I was really hoping this would work.”

“There’s more than a few people willing to use that acid in modified blasters,” Cara said, nodding to the battery. “Gives the plasma an extra kick.”

“We are not selling to arms dealers,” Omera admonished, and Cara grinned like she’d just told a joke. “I don’t care what faction, either. That’s too high-profile.”

“Sounds like the voice of experience talking.”

“It is,” she said forcefully. “Which is why we’re sticking to junkyards.”

“Suit yourself.” Cara tilted her head, looking back towards the village, and a sardonic expression spread across her face. “Ah. Looks like you have a visitor.”

Omera looked up and saw the Mandalorian’s dark figure like a smudge against the horizon approaching them. She thought that he must be miserably hot in his gear, even without most of his beskar. 

She smiled as he drew near, trying not to stare at how stiff his gait was. “Good morning,” she said when he was within earshot. “How are you feeling?”

“Well, thank you,” he replied curtly, then nodded to Cara. His gaze immediately went to the tarps spread on the grass, covered with scrap. “What needs to be done?”

“By you? Nothing,” she said patiently, and kept the smile on her face when his helmet turned back to her. “We have more than enough hands here.”

“Winta told me how busy you were,” he replied. It wasn’t quite an argument, not yet, but she could easily tell where this conversation was going to lead.

She nodded. “If you’re up for it, we need more people helping with the harvest.”

Predictably, a stretch of silence followed. She could feel the frustration roll off him as his hands slowly flexed by his sides. 

Cara rolled her eyes and sighed. “What, is that too lowly for someone of your station?”

“No,” he said immediately, annoyed. “But I’m not a krill farmer.”

“You’re not a scrapper, either,” Cara reminded him.

“I’m familiar with the process.”

She snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

He turned to her, the frustration now clear in his voice. “And you are?”

“Yes, actually.” She sprung up to her feet, and Omera suspected that in itself was a jab at him. “Stripped more than a few imperial ships for field repairs in my career.”

“Your short career.”

For the first time Cara began to look something other than amused. Her eyes narrowed. “Says the guildless bounty hunter.”

It was Omera’s turn to roll her eyes. “Both of you are wasting time. This work is hard enough without a back injury,” she continued, directing her words to Din now. “You can be useful elsewhere. Go speak with Stoke if you want to keep your hands busy.”

He looked away from Cara, ignoring her glaring outright, and acknowledged Omera’s words with a nod before turning away and striding off. It was difficult to look angry and imposing while walking with a back injury, but he made a valiant attempt at it anyway.

“Ugh,” Cara groaned when he was out of earshot. “Nothing more annoying than a martyr.”

“He’s just trying to be helpful,” Omera said with a smile, watching him approach Stoke awkwardly. 

“Stop bringing him breakfast,” Cara suggested. “It’ll ease his honourable heart.”

Omera sighed. “Put that in the leftmost pile,” she said, nodding to the massive barrel on the ground. “There’s too much work to do to worry about anyone’s honour right now.”

* * *

The longhall was empty except for him, though people regularly passed through to grab stores from the pantries or to take a short rest from the blazing sun. It was the coolest building in the village, with a high vaulted ceiling and two air frosters that did a decent job of cycling out the heat, but even still, he was uncomfortably hot just sitting there.

In front of him on the table were three baskets—one holding freshly harvested krill, one for shell compost, and one for dehulled krill meat. In one hour he’d managed to pull the shells off fourteen krill, and all of them lay in a mangled pile in the third basket. It was probably not what Stoke was expecting of him, but he’d quickly come to realise that dehulling was a brutally difficult task that required a type of dexterity and patience he clearly did not possess.

Din sat back in the booth, rolling his shoulders and looking up at the ceiling, hoping that maybe there would be some guidance up there for him. Finding only dusty rafters, he blew out a breath and sank deeper into the booth, letting his legs stretch out in front of him. 

“What are you doing?” asked a small voice, and he looked down to find Winta staring up at him, the kid in her hands. 

“Taking a break,” he replied. “What are you doing?”

“Mama said to come check up on you.”

“I’m fine,” he replied immediately, and Winta shrunk back a little at his tone. He tried again, making sure to keep the frustration out of his voice. “How’s the kid?”

“He ate a bug outside,” she informed him, which she apparently assumed was sufficient enough information to answer his question, because she hopped up into a seat on the other side of the table and sat the kid down on top of it, next to the baskets. “Why are you ripping up a bunch of krill?”

“I’m trying not to.” He wiped his hands on his pants and grabbed his gloves, which he’d tossed beside him in an attempt to prevent them from permanently smelling like shellfish oil. He shoved them on beneath the table and looked up to find Winta peeling the shell off of a krill with an ease that made him glad she could not see him gape openly at what she was doing. 

“Were you trying to do this?” She held up the krill by its gills, the pale blue flesh beneath the shell now completely exposed. Most impressive was that it was in one piece.

“Yes,” he admitted with defeat.

She nodded. “Darvish won’t buy krill that are in bits, so we’ll have to use those for compost.”

“Who’s Darvish?”

“The proprietor lady in town. She’s really nice, but she only buys in bulk whole from us.”

He nodded, considering the mess he’d made with the krill so far, and picked up a fresh one from the basket. “Okay. Then show me how you did that.”

Winta’s eyes widened, excitement plain on her face at the sudden prospect of teaching an adult something she knew. She tossed the dehulled one into the right-most basket and picked up another. 

“First,” she began, “you grab the tail with one hand and the gills with the other—the gills are here,” she explained, pointing at the frills beneath its head. “And you wiggle the tail slowly until you feel a tiny snap, which means the tendons are broken off from the shell inside. Then you keep wiggling,” she continued, and he watched her gently slide the shell off of the krill’s body. Once again, pale turquoise flesh was exposed from beneath the shell, the skin unmarred from the green-grey-blue fluid that had oozed out when he’d attempted the same thing. “You don’t want the blood to leak out, or the meat will dry up and it’ll taste bland.”

He looked down at his own krill and held it like she had, and slowly began to wiggle the tail back and forth.

“Yeah! You got it. Uh, you have to—” She reached out and grabbed his hand, shyness momentarily forgotten in her excitement, and angled it so that his wrist was held higher than his fingers. “Like that. And don’t grab too hard. You want to keep the gills on the body so they don’t come off with the shell, but if you squish them too hard they’ll burst.”

He nodded, doing his best to both be gentle and keep his hands positioned properly. It was the exact opposite of what he’d been doing before—struggling and ripping and generally making a mess. 

As he worked the shell off, he looked to the kid and saw that his sleeves were damp. “What were you two doing?”

“Oh.” Winta picked up another krill. “He was trying to catch these in the ponds outside.”

“I don’t think he can swim,” he warned her, and her hands stilled as she stared up at him. Softer, he reminded himself. “You have to watch him,” he said, much more gently now.

“I know,” she assured him, though it wasn’t petulant or dismissive. In fact, there was enough gravity to her tone that he wondered if this wasn’t the first time a young child had strayed too close to a pond. 

“You’re doing a good job,” he told her then, looking back at the kid. “Keeping him happy.”

“He’s pretty easy most of the time,” Winta said, though her cheeks flushed at the compliment. “But he’s really good at hiding.”

“He is.”

For the next few hours he dehulled the basket of krill with Winta, and the sound of crackling shells filled their corner of the longhall. The kid seemed mostly content to watch them, sitting quietly on the table and only needing the occasional stimulus of being given a krill to crunch in his hands. Din still destroyed the first few he pulled the shells off of, but Winta gave him a round of applause when he finally managed to successfully detach the shell from a krill without bursting the gills or pulling the body into pieces.

“You did it!” she exclaimed, pumping her fists in the air. “You’re a krill farmer!”

“Not quite,” he said, but felt an absurd spike of pride at finally accomplishing what seemed like second nature to the little girl across from him. “I need to catch up to you.”

“I wasn’t counting,” she said, but she was grinning mischievously. “But now you have to teach me something.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I teach you, you teach me. That’s how it always goes. Then we both know something new today.”

He got the impression she was pulling his leg, but he also wasn’t sure if he cared. “Okay,” he replied, playing along. “What do you want to know?”

“Hm.” She tapped her lip with the hollow shell she’d just pulled off of a krill. “Teach me Manda.”

“Mando’a,” he corrected. “You mean the whole language?”

“Um. How about a word?”

He thought for a moment. _“Gi,”_ he said, and pointed at the basket of krill. 

_“Gi,”_ she repeated, and her tongue poked her cheek like she was tasting the new word. “That means krill?”

“Fish,” he told her. “There’s no specific word for krill.”

“Oh.” She looked down at the basket, frowning. “That’s kinda boring. What about a swear word?”

“No.” He tossed the shell in one basket and the krill meat in another.

“Why not? No one else is gonna know what it means besides me. And you,” she added, and she leaned in to whisper dramatically. “I won’t even tell Fuzzy what it means.”

He looked over at the kid. “I though you wanted to learn it so you could help teach him.”

She frowned as she tried to think of a way to spin her suggestion in her favour. While she thought, he pulled apart more krill and stopped the kid from shoving himself into one of the baskets. He was probably getting hungry again.

“Well,” Winta eventually said, “when he grows up he’ll have to know some swear words, and I can teach him then.”

His hands stilled. The kid was trying to get into the basket again, and tipped the side so that a bunch of shells spilled out onto the table. Winta shouted in surprise and grabbed the kid off the table before beginning to clean up the mess he’d made. Dimly, he registered her admonishing the kid, though her words had no steel behind them.

He felt his back dig into the wood of the booth’s backrest, and his shoulders burned with the effort of holding his arms up. He finished pulling the krill apart before tossing it into the basket, then stood up from the table.

“Hey, wait.” Winta stood up too, the kid in her arms. “Where are you going?”

“A walk,” he threw over his shoulder, and left the longhall before she could ask why.

* * *

“This,” Cara said breathlessly, “is going to take weeks.”

Omera nodded tiredly, surveying the tarps laid out in front of them. They’d made good headway on sorting through what they’d pulled out so far, but the AT-ST was massive and had thousands of moving parts inside of it. A lot of it was scorched and heavily damaged, which meant they had to go through each bolt and screw individually in order to determine what would be sold for scrap and what was worth something. The next task then was sorting through what was still worth salvaging and determining a price point for each—something as large and valuable as an Imperial walker would not come along again in her lifetime on Sorgan, and she was not about to let any part of its harvest be underbid.

“It’s a lot,” she finally admitted, peeling off her gloves and letting them drop to the grass in front of her. Her hands were slick with sweat. 

“Can you spare your farmers for that long?” Cara asked, looking back towards the ponds. It was deep afternoon by now, and people were hard at work. Sora and Fahl had left to eat lunch, and she almost wanted to dismiss them for the day. She felt as exhausted as they looked.

“Probably not.” Omera shrugged the heavy poncho off, pulling it over her head and letting it drop to the ground, too. The air passed over the damp clothes clinging to her body, making her shiver. She savoured the momentary relief, knowing she’d be sweltering again soon enough. “There’s enough to do as it is. I might be able to borrow a few of the droids, though.”

“Well, the walker’s not going anywhere.” Cara banged her fist on the side of the AT-ST, and the panel shuddered. “You can take your time with it.”

“I’ll have to have this complete before the two of you leave,” she said, rolling her shoulders. Maybe _she_ should pay a visit to the springs. If she wasn’t so hot, that prospect might’ve been appealing. “We need the _Razor Crest_ to cart all of this to a junkyard.” 

The raids had put them in a bad way, and in more ways than one. Even if she could convince someone else to fly them out, they’d take a significant cut of whatever she sold, and the village needed all the money it could get to survive this season. On top of that, there were a lot of things that they needed—better plumbing would be a big start. 

“I’m not looking to go anywhere for awhile,” Cara said, leaning against the walker. “And it sounds like Djarin isn’t either. He’s got more to hide from than I do, and that’s saying something.”

As if their conversation had summoned him, Omera spotted him approaching the walker from the village, his shoulders set rigid with determination. Or pain, she thought with amusement. It wasn’t always easy to tell with him.

“Hello again,” Cara called, spotting him as well. “How’s the krill farming going?”

He ignored her completely, walking past Cara and stopping a few feet away from Omera. “I need to speak with you.”

She raised a brow at the urgency in his tone. “Is something wrong? Did you see anything come near the village?”

“Not—no, nothing like that.” He glanced over at Cara expectantly then.

“You want me leave?” she asked with a laugh. “Alright, whatever. I’ll go take a walk in the forest.”

“It’s not anywhere near dusk yet,” Din said, somewhat exasperated.

She rolled her eyes. “Why are you complaining—I thought you needed privacy? I need a break from all this anyway,” she said, gesturing to the walker guts all spilled out across the grass. “I won’t be out long.”

He didn’t argue with her any further, only waiting long enough for her to check that she still had her gun before heading to the forest. When she reached the tree line, he let out a deep sigh.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, and then: “Actually, do you mind if we stand beside the barn for shade? It’s awful out here.”

He only nodded in reply, and they made the short walk over to the eastern side of the barn, which gave a wonderful strip of unbroken shade from the sun. She breathed a sigh of relief.

When they stepped beneath its shadow, he turned to her and took another breath. He seemed tense, and it was beyond the normal stiffness that came with his injured back. 

“How long did you tell Winta we were staying here?” he asked her.

“Oh.” Whatever he’d been upset about, she had not been expecting that. “I was just speaking with Cara about that, actually. And I didn’t tell her anything,” she answered. “Why?”

“She seems to think we’re staying here forever.”

“Ah.” She leaned against the wall of the barn, and its springy woven walls bent slightly to accommodate her shoulder. “What did you say to her?”

He hesitated. “I didn’t,” he replied after a moment. 

“Because you don’t know, or don’t want to?”

“I don’t—” He looked away from her. “I was thinking a few months at most.”

She hated how her heart fell at his words. She knew they would be moving on at some point, she always had. And she’d tried to remind herself constantly of that fact—that they were not new, permanent fixtures in her life, only a passing novelty. 

And yet the reminder still stung. He’d said it offhandedly, as if this was all of no consequence to him. 

“Then what is the issue?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. The shade was a wonderful relief, but beneath it she felt cold now.

“I just want to manage expectations.” He was looking everywhere but her face—the trees, the walker, his boots. Anything but her.

She reached out and settled her hand on his arm, because she could do that now, and felt the heat radiating off of him from the sun, felt the muscle beneath the thick fabric of his suit. “Is this about your boy?”

He looked down at her hand, but he didn’t shrink away. “Yes,” he whispered, like he was confessing something. “They’re inseparable.”

“And Winta will love him every moment he is here,” she told him. “Allow her that. I will—manage expectations, as you called it.”

He looked like he was struggling for something—words, maybe. It was difficult to tell, though she thought she had a pretty good handle on his body language by now. But it also did not escape her notice that he’d leaned into her hand. She didn’t think it was conscious—it had been a slow, subtle thing, and only now had she realised the pressure against her palm. 

“She takes good care of him,” he said finally. She would not call his tone helpless—floundering, perhaps. 

She offered him a liferaft. “And you’ve taken good care of us.” Omera squeezed his bicep before letting her arm fall away. It was too difficult to focus on speaking while touching him. “Enjoy this. Don’t think too hard about the future right now. I know that’s hard,” she added, seeing the doubtful tip of his helmet. “Believe me, I do.”

He finally looked at her, and he was shaking his head. “You are not a krill farmer,” he told her, his voice quiet, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“I am now,” she corrected him. “And so are you, by the smell of things.”

“Oh.” He held out a hand and looked down at it. “Yeah. Stoke gave me some work.”

“Good.”

There was a pause as she waited for him to work through their conversation in his head, for she was sure that’s what he was doing. Another person might have called him slow, but she found it endearing, how deeply he thought through whatever it was she said to him.

His shoulders eventually relaxed, and when he sighed this time, it was relieved, not heavy. “Just make sure she knows,” he whispered.

“I will,” she promised. Then she nodded to the barn and smiled at him. “Are you hungry?”

* * *

She honestly wasn’t expecting to find anything.

The forest was significantly cooler than the open plains surrounding the village, and the sun filtering through the trees was now pleasant instead of oppressive. Automatically, Cara fell into walking her usual route around the forest. They’d need to switch up paths soon to keep from being predictable, but for now she simply enjoyed the easy walk.

Djarin had hid his little sentries well—stuck into the roots of a tree, or beneath the foliage covering a rock, and one was even planted in the water of a meandering stream, its gunmetal hidden by the gleam of the sun off the water’s surface. They were inconspicuous, about the size of her thumb, and they littered the edges of the forest. His setup was more sophisticated than she expected, but she couldn’t say she complained. Despite how insufferable his noble stoic act could be, she appreciated that he took this job seriously, even beyond what they’d been hired to do here. It was clear he cared about this village, and not just because they were letting them hide in their barn for a few months. It was an easy place to fall in love with.

Cara had walked about half of her route before she heard it. Heavy footsteps of a biped, exhausted and slow and making no attempt to hide the noise it was clearly making. She quickly found somewhere to duck down and pulled out her gun. Then she waited.

It took several minutes for it to make an appearance. Klatooinians were heavier-footed than she’d realised, and by the time it was within her line of sight, it sounded like it was purposefully stomping around the forest. Cara watched it from behind a fallen tree, ambling around and breathing heavily. She wasn’t exactly familiar with their physiology, but it seemed exhausted. Its skin was an ashy grey, and its tongue hung out of its mouth like a dog. The weapon in its hand seemed to be dragged along by habit more than intent, but it was still clearly making a beeline for the village.

Her legs tensed beneath her as it came closer, and her fingers gripped her blaster. The trajectory of its weaving movements would put it directly in her path. She wondered if it even saw the log she was hiding behind.

She was just about to burst out from behind her cover when it fell face-first into the forest floor, huffing hard enough to disturb the spongy, rotting leaves beneath it. This close, she saw a foamy film coat the rim of its mouth, and the strong scent of stale spotchka wafted off of it. Cara waited another full two minutes, watching the tree line and waiting to see if any of its comrades were nearby. When none came, she stepped out quietly from behind the log and approached the Klatoonian, choosing her footfalls carefully. It was still breathing unevenly into the ground, making unpleasant noises of distress.

She stood over it, and with a swift twist of her hands on its head, she broke its neck. Its body jolted once before going completely still, and the breathing stopped. 

With a boot to its shoulder she rolled it over, getting a better look at the now-dead raider. There were no visible injuries, and she wasn’t a detective, but if she were to take a guess as to its fate, it had probably drank whatever spotchka reserves back at what remained of their camp, and ambled piss-drunk and dehydrated towards the village. In a heat like today, she was almost sympathetic. It had probably had a killer migraine.

She snorted at her own stupid joke, then pulled out a knife and stuck it into its throat for good measure. Cara marked where they were on her own route map and continued the rest of her patrol. The disgusting smell of dried alcohol rolling off of it would keep animals away for a while (she hoped), but they’d have to dispose of the body soon. 

Another thing to add to the list of work.


	7. Supervising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone really should be watching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres gonna be a strong spike in the amount of tackling going on in this story for some reason. stay tuned

It had been a very, very long time since she’d felt the urge to pine for boredom, but that longing had been steadily creeping into her dreams again, and today it filled every empty crook in her head.

Omera knelt down beside Rend’s cot, pressing her wrist to his forehead and shaking her head. It was the third day and his fever still hadn’t broke. If she were feeling optimistic, she would say the Rend felt a little cooler today, but—well. 

“I told you,” Idane said behind her in her craggy, creaking voice. “It’s not healing, and he’s not getting better.”

“No,” she sighed, having no choice but to agree with the old woman’s assessment. In some spectacular twist of good luck, they had not lost anyone the night of the battle, but there had been injuries. Some had healed well—some had not. And right now, Rend’s leg was only becoming more inflamed. “I’ll add antiseptics to the list.”

“And these,” Idane said, tapping Omera on the shoulder and handing her a list of other supplies. Tweezers, needle and thread, bandages, iodine, and a dozen other things they’d run low on. Din had shared a surprising amount of medical supplies with them, but his stores were only ever intended to be used by one person—sharing across a village of twenty people had drained them quickly.

“We’ll be lucky if we have anything left over from what we sell,” Omera muttered, folding the list and tucking it into a pocket before standing up from the bed. She went over to the wall and opened Rend’s window despite the heat, hoping to cycle out the stale, sick air in his hut. 

“It’ll get us through what we need to get through,” Idane told her, apparently thinking that was a reassuring sentiment.

Omera forced a smile, though she couldn’t keep the exhaustion from it. “What else is there?” she asked the old woman. There was always something more Idane wanted, and she never put those things on lists.

Idane was cut off from speaking when Winta tripped into the hut, huffing out breath and eyes wide. Omera held back her automatic admonishment to stay away from this place when she noticed the wild expression in her eyes. 

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re—” Winta exhaled and pointed behind her. “They’re fighting again.”

She looked to Idane, who, to her credit, did not complain or amble on about the interruption in the winding way that old people who had long ago lost the ability to grasp urgency did. “Go,” she said instead. “I will keep here.”

“I’ll be back soon,” she promised, and ducked out of the hut to follow Winta back to the walker.

“What is it this time?” she called to her daughter, too tired to run. Winta slowed down to answer her, and fell into step beside her mother.

“They’re yelling about droids,” she said, shrugging. “And Cara has the Mandalorian pinned on the ground.”

Omera stopped altogether at that. _“What?”_

* * *

“You do this _every_ morning—”

“It’s my ship!” he said incredulously, gesturing towards the gangplank. “And I don’t want—”

“And put your goddamn gun away,” Cara bit back, interrupting him. She glared down at the blaster in his hand, trying to control her temper. “This isn’t a stand-off.”

He grudgingly complied, shoving it back into its holster, and his visor tilted over at the two droids holding scrap cartons. They had both frozen several feet away from the cargo bay entrance, paralysed by the fear of catching a blaster round. 

“No droids go in the _Crest,”_ he repeated his earlier demand, looking back at her. She could tell he was glaring.

“Do you have a laundry list of these conditions written down somewhere, or are you naturally this neurotic?” Cara blew out a breath as she bowed her head. “This is not your job, it has never been your job, and standing around supervising is only holding everyone up. Like right now,” she added, waving her arm towards the walker. 

“It’s not a complicated rule,” he replied, sounding like he was speaking through grinding teeth. “I’ll replace whatever work they do.”

Cara snorted. “It’s far from your only ‘rule’—and you can’t do anything in your state—”

“Yes, I can—”

“Oh, really?” 

Djarin must have heard the threat behind her words, because he froze, his shoulders locked forward in a half-defensive position. Not that that mattered—it wouldn’t help him much.

Lunging forward, Cara hooked her foot around his right ankle and shoved his shoulder so that he spun around, then grabbed his left arm and twisted it up against his back. He cried out in equal parts anger and pain before she shoved him to his knees and then down into the grass. He tried to buck up against her, but she only twisted his arm harder, and she felt his body go limp to give his shoulder joint more slack.

“Get out of this and I’ll believe you,” she said calmly, patiently, as if she didn’t have him pinned to the ground. Her knee dug into his lower back for good measure, and she heard his helmet thud as he pressed it down into the dirt. She didn’t need to worry about his other arm—it was pinned under him, and the only way to free it would be to push up against her weight. He still squirmed under her grip, but mostly he was just trying to gasp our breath.

“Stop,” he rasped, sounds almost desperate. 

She only laughed. “Stop because I’m right?”

He bucked up again feebly as she heard shouting behind her. Without letting up any pressure, she looked over her shoulder to see Omera and her kid stomping over this way.

She twisted again and he groaned. “So what’ll it be, Mando?”

“What the hell are you two doing?” Omera’s voice was behind her now, and very, very angry. Cara relaxed her grip by a fraction and heard Djarin sigh in relief in between gasps of pain.

“Performing a demonstration,” Cara replied with as much nonchalance as she could muster, looking up at the woman.

“For what, exactly?” Omera’s gaze was piercing. “And—let him go!”

“For Djarin here,” Cara said, and then stood up, letting go of his arm. It immediately fell to his side, but he didn’t get up right away, instead using the breathing room to groan into his visor. For a moment she nearly—nearly—felt sorry for him, before her gaze was pulled back to the singed spot of grass near his ship’s gangplank where he’d fired off a warning shot at the droids.

Omera was rubbing a hand over her face, looking beyond exhausted, and Cara got the distinct impression that Omera thought of them as nothing more than petulant, unruly children in this moment. Cara still couldn’t quite muster the will to regret what she’d done, though.

“I was just saying,” the Mandalorian gasped from his place on the ground, rolling onto his side to look up at Omera. “That I don’t want droids on my ship.”

“Why?” she asked flatly.

“Because I don’t want them near my ship.”

She turned to Cara, who could only shrug. “He’s slowing us down,” she told the woman. “Again.”

“And so are you, by doing all of—this.” Omera gestured between the two of them angrily. “For god knows what reason. Can you stand up?”

“Yes,” Djarin said hoarsely, though he sounded doubtful. Cara wondered if he’d shoot her if she offered him a hand up, but then he sat up with his good arm in the grass and slowly, painfully stood up under his own power. He was breathing heavily by the time he got to his feet, and there was a smudge of mud against his visor where his helmet had pressed into the dirt.

Omera only shook her head again. “Go to the springs, and when you’re finished, find work for yourself. And you,” she rounded to Cara, “keep loading the scrap.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Cara assured her. 

“Are you two done, then?”

“Yes,” they said in unison, and Djarin shot a glare at her that she could feel through his tinted visor. He rolled his shoulders as he began walking away, grunting, and if she didn’t know any better she swore he was limping a little more dramatically than was strictly necessary. 

“You should be paying me,” Omera said then, and Cara turned to look at her. “Not the other way around. That’s the third—no, fourth!—fight I’ve broken up between you two this week.”

“Have you met him?” Cara asked sarcastically, jerking her head in the direction he’d went. “He’s been doing nothing but backseat supervising. And I don’t give a shit that he’s put out by a sore back—he comes around every morning to bitch and complain about how this work is being done.”

She watched Omera’s jaw shift back and forth—not quite grinding her teeth, she looked too tired to find the strength for that. “I need to rely on you two,” she said quietly, letting out a deep breath. “I can’t overstate how much work needs to still be done. The huts, the walker, the injuries, the farm—all of it. The least you can do is not add to that workload by having fistfights.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t a fight,” Cara said, and then immediately sobered when Omera shot her a cutting glare. “Fine, I get it. I know. I’ll try to keep the peace.”

“Good.” Omera looked around at the field-turned-scrapyard, her hands planted on her hips. Winta had finally come away from hiding behind her mother, and went over to poke the divot the Mandalorian’s helmet had made in the grass with her shoe. “This looks like it’s coming along well.”

“Another week, maybe,” Cara told her. “The deeper you dig into that thing, the more scorched scrap you find. It’s helped speed everything along.”

“Is it all going to fit in his ship?”

“It better,” she muttered, “or he’ll have to move more of his crap out.”

* * *

Winta avoided both the Mandalorian and Cara for the rest of the day, partially because she felt guilty for ratting on them and partially because they were both in foul moods. When the Mandalorian had come back from the spring, he’d kept to himself and told her he wasn’t interested in teaching her any Mando’a today. She’d pouted about it at first, but that meant that Mando had _two_ new words to teach her this morning, and she was coming to collect.

With the sun still rising over the horizon, Winta found the Mandalorian in the barn, sitting cross-legged on the ground and bent over what looked like a piece of leather in his hands. He was working a knife against it, but she couldn’t tell why.

“I’m coming in,” she announced before swiping the door’s curtain away as she stepped inside, remembering her mother’s insistence on knocking before entering the barn. She had no idea why—she didn’t have to knock at anyone else’s hut. But they were guests, so maybe that was the reason.

He didn’t look up from his work, so Winta crouched down in front of him and tapped a finger on the floorboard to get his attention. “What’s the word today?” she asked impatiently.

His helmet tipped up. “Where’d you take the kid?”

She huffed out a breath. He’d let her sleep with Fuzzy last night, but she hadn’t come here to talk about Fuzzy. “He’s eating with Turen. What’s the new word?”

“No new word,” he replied, looking back down at the leather. Closer now, she could see it was part of a harness or holster, and that he was making another hole in the strap with the tip of the blade. “You haven’t taught me anything yet.”

“How could I? It’s still too early,” she reasoned, rocking back on her heels to sit on her butt. When he didn’t respond, she sighed. “Ugh, fine. What else do you suck at? I could teach you how to weave baskets again.”

“You showed me how to do that already.”

“You’re still pretty bad at it,” she said, and saw him shake his head. “The last one you made fell apart in the ponds.”

“No new word,” he repeated, and rattled the harness so that the shaved off leather fell away. He ran a gloved thumb over the new hole he’d made and held it up to light to examine it. “Go watch the kid.”

She laid back on the ground and groaned. She didn’t whine, because whining was for babies, but she did tap her feet against the floorboards loudly in protest. “If I watch him I have to teach him the new word,” she tried instead.

“I’ll teach it to him.”

“Come ooooon—”

“If I teach you a new word then you won’t learn this,” he interrupted, and she pulled her head up to look at him. He was holding the harness out to her, and she sat up.

“What’s that?”

“A holster,” he said. “But it’s too big for you. I need to modify it.”

“Holster for what?”

His visor turned towards one of the crates he’d brought with him to the village. She squinted at how the light shone off his helmet and followed his gaze. It was one of his weapons lockers.

Her eyes widened. “You’re gonna teach me how to shoot?”

“Your mother said it was okay.”

“I’m gonna learn how to shoot!” Winta bolted up to her feet, unable to contain her excitement. “When? When when when?”

“When I’m finished with this,” he said calmly. “Go watch the kid.”

“Okay!” 

* * *

Omera knew the moment the Mandalorian had begun his lessons with Winta, because it was also the moment her daughter stopped badgering her for permission to go ask him to hurry up. 

She watched them from where she stood in the ponds, a basket in hand. Sifting the ponds wasn’t something she exactly considered easy work, but under the heat of the summer sun, it was nothing compared to scrapping or tending to healing villagers.

Or breaking up fights. 

She knew both Din and Cara had taken her plea for peace to heart, because there hadn’t been an altercation this morning. Their method of conflict resolution seemed to mostly involve avoiding each other during the day and having amicably threatening conversations in the evenings. It was a much healthier way to blow off steam, and some part of her wished that she could join in on the good-natured ribbing. Still, she was glad they were making an effort to get along. 

On top of that, the Mandalorian had approached her yesterday evening, and only afterwards had she realised it was his way of formally apologising to her.

He’d come to her with a harness in hand, and she’d beckoned him to come sit in the grass with her. She was repairing baskets that evening, threading fresh reedgrass that grew from the ponds through any holes she could find and tying them off. It was an ugly solution, but it was a hundred times faster than making new ones from scratch.

Din cleared his throat as he sat down beside her, shifting around until his back was comfortable.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. It had become her customary greeting with him by this point, and he always answered the same.

“Well, thank you. I wanted to ask you something.”

She smiled at him tiredly as her hands folded the reedgrass together. “I’m listening.”

“Your permission,” he continued, and looked down at the harness in his hands. “This was—is—it’s a leg holster for a sidearm.” He cleared his throat again, as if the words were difficult to get out. “I’d like to give it to your daughter.”

Her hands stilled on the basket. “What for?” she asked, perhaps stupidly. What else would it possibly be for? “You’re not giving her a gun with it, are you?”

“No,” he assured her. “But she always comes up to me after firing lessons with the others, asking me to show her how to shoot.” 

Omera looked down at the basket she was holding, her lips pursing as she thought. “See,” she whispered after a moment, “this is why I didn’t want to do any firing drills in front of her.”

“You’re quite good,” the Mandalorian replied. It was a ridiculous thing to blush at, but she still felt her face heat. “I think she wants to be like you.”

Omera rolled her eyes to cover her flustering. “Please. I think she wants to be like Cara. A woman who can pin a Mandalorian to the ground is a good woman to look up to.”

He shifted again, and she thought he looked embarrassed. “Well,” he said after a moment. “I need to make adjustments to this before I give it to her, but I won’t bother if you don’t want me to.”

They went quiet again as she mulled it over. She would be hard-pressed to find a more qualified person to teach Winta how to wield a gun, but his skill wasn’t what was up for debate. It was already quite apparent that her efforts to shield her daughter from as much of reality as possible was nothing but a fantasy. Not that was ever anything but a fantasy in the first place, but still. Winta was growing branches in directions she had not anticipated, but it would be even more foolish to attempt to excise that growth. Cutting is always what kills the tree.

“Perhaps you could answer a question of mine,” she replied.

“Of course.”

“Do you want to?”

“Want to?” he repeated.

She nodded to the holster. “Do you want to teach her? Or is this to fulfill an obligation you feel is owed?”

He looked down at the leather in his hands, as if he would find the answer written on its underside. 

Then he spoke. “I want to,” he said simply.

Omera let out a sigh and nodded slowly. “Okay,” she whispered back, and swore she saw him brighten beneath his helmet. 

He hadn’t dawdled in modifying the holster, because now, only a day later, he was kneeling by Winta, strapping the belt around her waist and affixing the leg strap to her thigh.

“Did you make this?” she heard Winta ask. The only way to hear their conversation would be to stand completely still in the water, and so Omera decided that it was time for a break. She had to strain to listen, because she could also hear the children playing in the other ponds nearby, including the child. One of their favoured games seemed to be tossing live krill at him and watching him scoop them up from the ground, which Turen seemed to be doing now.

“No, I took it from someone,” he replied. “Keep your leg straight.”

“Who did you take it from?” Winta’s tiny hand was braced on one of his pauldrons for support, and her hair hung in front of her face as she watched the Mandalorian tighten the strap that ran around her thigh.

“A bounty.” His back was blocking Omera’s line of sight, so she couldn’t see his hands working, but from the frown on Winta’s face he was apparently having difficulties.

“What does bounty mean?”

“It’s a—job,” he said offhandedly, then jerked his arm. Winta rocked with the movement, and after a few more moments of fiddling, he stood up and took a step back to look at her. “How does the waist feel?”

Winta grabbed the belt and wiggled it, then looked up at him. “I think it’s okay.”

“The thigh strap?”

She shook her leg at him and grinned. “Good.”

He reached down and stuck two fingers between the belt and her hip, wriggling them back and forth, then shook his head. “I’ll have to adjust the belt some more, but it’ll do for now.” Then his hand went behind his back, under his cloak, and it reappeared with a sidearm in hand. It was small, probably too small for an adult to use, but when Winta grabbed the stock, it suddenly seemed very large. 

“You’ll train with this,” he told her, flipping the gun around in his hand so that he was holding the barrel, the grip pointed towards Winta. 

She took it gingerly, and her arm sagged with the weight. “It’s heavy,” she observed, letting her wrist go limp as she waggled it around.

“It’ll be heavier soon. It’s unloaded right now.” He knelt down again and pointed at the grip. “Turn it upside down. That’s where the plasma cartridge goes. The weight will balance out when it’s loaded.”

“I see the hole,” she said, poking a finger into the slot before he grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t do that. This,” he continued, letting go of her hand and pointing near the trigger guard. “Is the safety. If you can see the green tab underneath, that means it’s off. Red is on. When it’s red, you can’t fire it. We have to go over some basics first, and after I show you how to load it, we can….”

“Psst, hey.” 

Omera jumped and turned around, realising that she was still standing in the pond. She looked up and saw Cara, and her eyes widened when she noticed the blood on the woman’s shirt. “What happened?”

“Oh, that’s not mine.” She knelt down in the grass, balancing on the balls of her feet. “I just came by to tell you I found another raider in the forest.”

Omera resisted the urge to rub at her temples. “Were you injured at all?”

“No, it was an easy kill like the last one,” she assured her, though she almost sounded disappointed. “But I wanted to keep you updated. I’ll have to go out and burn the body later, so I may be out late tonight.”

Omera looked back over to the Mandalorian and her daughter, watching them as he told her very sternly how dangerous the gun was. “You haven’t told him about either of the raiders you found yet?”

“He’s already paranoid and jumpy,” Cara replied, waving her hand in dismissal. “He’ll start patrolling like a madman and screw up his back even more, and then he won’t be any use if it does become a problem. Which it won’t,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“I could take his patrol spot,” Omera murmured, though there was no conviction behind the suggestion. Just the thought of adding something to the list of things she had to do gave her a headache.

Cara snorted behind her, and she turned back. “Yeah, no. I have a handle on it. There weren’t that many that got away, and they’re all weak and disoriented. My guess is they’re at the whim of the forest, and they aren’t handling it well. The guy I found today was just wandering in circles.”

“As long as we’re safe,” she said, mustering a smile, and Cara grinned back at her. 

“The bigger threat is you falling asleep in that pond,” she replied, nodding to the water before standing up and offering a hand. “Come eat.”

Omera took it gratefully and let the woman pull her up out of the pond. Cara seemed unconcerned about the water sloughing off her soaked frock and pants, keeping her arm held out until Omera had her legs properly under her.

“I will,” she assured the woman, then looked over her shoulder. “I just want to watch them for a bit first.”

“I’ll bring you out a plate,” Cara said, and she shot the woman a thankful smile before turning back to her daughter and Din.

He was speaking more quietly now, too low for her to catch his words above the ambient noise of the village and the children playing nearby, but she could see that he was gesturing to the ground, with his hand on the barrel of the gun. It was easy enough to recognise that he was imparting the foundations of weapon discipline to Winta, and she was watching him intently, her face scrunched in concentration as she nodded along to his instructions. 

Cara soon returned with a plate of food for each of them, which she accepted silently, too absorbed in watching the two by the edge of the forest. Cara motioned for her to take a seat beside her, and she sat down cross-legged in the grass with her meal.

“I’m surprised how good he is with kids,” Cara mused, popping some dried fruit into her mouth. “Doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“No,” Omera agreed absently. He’d stood up to demonstrate how to holster the blaster, and Winta was giggling as she shoved it into the leather harness at her thigh.

“Very dreamy,” Cara continued with a grin, sneaking her a sidelong glance. “If you’re into that sort of thing.”

Omera sighed but didn’t take the bait. “She’s always been a curious girl,” she said instead, nodding to her daughter. “I’m glad she’s made friends with a good teacher.”

Cara raised a brow. “Looked to me like you could’ve taught her that, if you wanted to.”

“If I wanted to,” Omera echoed, looking down at her plate. “Which I don’t. Like I said, she’s a curious girl.”

“Ah. You haven’t told her why you’re some secret marksman?” 

“No, and I don’t intend to. They’re not stories for a child’s ears.”

“Might wanna ask Djarin to moderate their conversations a bit more, then,” Cara replied, nodding over to them. Omera looked up at the pair, straining to hear them speak.

“Whoa!” Winta breathed, staring up at him. “You just shot him in the head?”

“Yes, and it’s very messy. Which is why you don’t point the gun at anyone you don’t intend to kill.”

“Huh.” Winta looked down at the gun in her hands. “I hope the worms don’t think I’m gonna kill them.”

“What?”

“You told me to point this at the ground,” she said, holding it up at him. His hand immediately gripped the barrel and pointed it back down. “Right, sorry. Just don’t want to scare the worms.”

“You won’t,” he assured her. “Now, look over at the forest….”

Omera rolled her eyes. “Yes, well,” she said to Cara. “I’ll have to bring that up next time we speak.”

Although the lesson was mostly just working through the anatomy of a blaster, it was drawing a bit of a crowd from the other children. They mostly avoided the Mandalorian, opting to interact with his far younger and more agreeable companion instead, but they quickly caught on to what he was doing with Winta and drew in closer to watch. She wondered if he’d soon have to craft holsters for the rest of the children in the village, and smiled at the thought of him overwhelmed with a dozen small children all vying for his attention.

She noticed Turen among the kids gathering around, and it was also when she noticed that the little boy was not with him. Omera set her plate down and rolled to her knees, looking back towards where they’d been playing. A few krill were still flopping around on the grass by the ponds, but there was no sign of the boy.

“Turen!” she called, loud enough to draw attention from the others and to startle Cara beside her. The boy whirled around, eyes wide like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “Where is the child?”

“He’s over—oh.” He looked around and frowned. “He was just over there.”

Their conversation had also drawn the attention of the Mandalorian, who paused in his lesson with Winta and eased past the growing throng of children, looking around. “Where is he?” he asked, far more roughly than Omera, and rounded on Turen.

The kid quivered beneath his glare. “I don’t—I don’t know, we were just playing—”

“Kid!” Din called out, turning away, the loudest she’d ever heard him speak. “Kid!”

She saw the other villagers around her pause in their work or their meal and look up, a dozen turning heads now scanning the horizon for the baby. A child going out of sight was not an irregular occurrence, and everyone knew the drill by now

Omera got to her feet to do the same, making sure her sweep was low to the ground. The child wasn’t much larger than a human infant, but it moved surprisingly fast. 

When she glanced back at the ponds, wondering if perhaps he had left any tracks, she saw that the water was bubbling by the bank.

“Din!” She yelled, and he whirled to see her pointing finger.

He reacted instantly, running for the water and skidding the last few metres on his legs. He stopped in front of the bank and plunged his hands into the water, nearly up to his shoulders.

Omera stood there by Cara, eyes wide, and felt Winta run to her as she watched. Her hand automatically went to her daughter’s hair, checking, reassuring, knowing she was safe. Secure in the terrible knowledge that at least it was not her child in harm’s way.

The Mandalorian’s hands came up from the ponds after a moment, holding the boy as water poured from his soaking wet jumper. She could hear the modulation of his helmet as if he were speaking, but no words came out. She watched as he laid the boy in the grass, tapping his chest, shaking him with a hand under his small head. 

“No, no,” she heard him whisper, and then he braced his hands, one overtop the other on its impossibly small chest, and began to do compressions. Part of her wanted to tell him he was doing it incorrectly, that he should be using two fingers and not his whole palm, but she was frozen in place, clutching Winta, watching.

“Come on,” he breathed, continuing the compressions. The child’s body jolted along with the movement, but otherwise was still. “Come on, come on, come on, come on—”

Omera broke through the fog and unwrapped her daughter’s arms from her waist as she moved towards the ponds. The adrenaline made everything sluggish as she walked along the sick tilt of the earth, flushing deep with dawning horror as the boy did not muster from the chest compressions.

And suddenly the Mandalorian stopped, his hands pulling away altogether. For a moment she thought he was going to stand up, but then his hands went upwards, towards the chin of his helmet, and she realised what he was about to do.


	8. Low Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has to break the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'd mostly finished this chapter by the time I posted 7, and I was fully intending to sit on it for a few more days to give me more time to write 9, but I've already gotten several very distressed comments about the last chapter, so here we are. Just a note that the next update might be a while. you know how the holidays are.
> 
> ANYWAY, kindly notice that I’ve also bumped the rating up to M for several reasons, one of which being that there are some discussions of child death (NOT BABY YODA DONT WORRY) in this chapter, so just a heads up for that!

Omera bowled into him with enough force to knock the wind out of herself. Din was thankfully not wearing much of his beskar, which was good news for her shoulder. 

His hands had been busy at the rim of his helmet, and with nothing to brace himself with, he sprawled back on the grass the moment she impacted him. By the time he reacted to what had happened, she was already kneeling in front of the boy, fingers tilting his head up to keep his airways clear. Then she hunched down over him, gulped in as much air as she could, and pressed her mouth over his lips and nose, blowing soft, gentle breaths into him.

It was a pinpoint and it was the whole open sky; she was tethered to this little boy and nothing else mattered, but she was also sharply aware of how much was happening around her. The Mandalorian was exhaling harshly beside her, watching in awe and not quite sobbing out his breath; Winta was crying, running towards them; her frock was still soaked; and the sun was setting. 

Omera continued the rhythm—two breaths followed by thirty compressions, over and over. She could not help but think of Gallin, one of Idane’s later children, who had fallen into the ponds when she was two. She had been submerged for far longer than the little boy in front of her, going unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of a busy harvest. Omera had done CPR on the girl for over an hour before informing Idane that her daughter would not be waking. It had happened years ago, when Winta had been a baby, but the memory still cut across the inside of her skull with razor clarity whenever it surfaced. 

Something wet was on her shoulder—it was the Mandalorian’s glove, gripping her tightly. Pinpricks of light refracted off his helmet from the sun and littered the ground around them like tiny stars. She heard the modulation of his helmet again, a voiceless crackle that never formed into words, but he didn’t push her away or try to take up his spot again.

She sensed a fluttering in the boy’s chest, a movement of fluid dislodging itself, and suppressed her relief down far enough that it did not disturb the rhythm of compressions and breaths. It took another two cycles until the boy moved, and then a tremendous amount of water came rushing up from his mouth and nose. Omera held him up, holding his small body as he coughed and sputtered. It ran down his jumper, onto her hands, and pooled on the already wet grass. Tiny gasps interspersed the rush of fluid, and the moment he got enough air in his lungs to draw a gurgling breath, he let out a hoarse, piercing cry. 

_“Ad’ika,”_ the Mandalorian whispered beside her, his hands cupping overtop hers like a shield as she propped the boy up. Despite his wet clothes, she could feel the warmth radiating off of him as his shoulder bumped against her. _“Oh ad’ika, ad’ika.”_

The boy continued to scream, his eyes open and rolling around wildly in their sockets. Winta was beside her now, crying and clutching her frock, trying desperately to ask a question around a lungful of sobs. 

Omera passed him over to Din, slipping her hands away from his. He pulled the boy immediately to his chest, crooning and rocking faintly where he sat on the ground, repeating only _ad’ika_ over and over. 

She took that time to bow her head and catch her own breath, her arms shaking with adrenaline and effort. Then she felt for her daughter, pulling Winta close and hushing her in between gulps of breath. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

It felt as if they sat there for hours, but it must have only been a minute before she was roused from her own stupor and looked up. The whole village had gone still, watching and waiting to see if this would be the day they buried another child. 

Omera realised she was crying and wiped at her face with the backs of her wet hands, sniffling and looking over at the Mandalorian again. He hadn’t recovered quite as quickly, still curled around the boy, his hands smoothing over the child’s back and hushing him as he cried. She rolled to her knees, feeling a hundred years old, and reached out to his shoulder.

“Din,” she said breathlessly, shaking him. “Din. You have to—you have to get him out of that jumper and into something warm.”

It took him a moment to register her words before he looked up and nodded, but he didn’t stand up. Omera wondered for a moment if he even could, but Cara must have heard the exchange, because she saw the woman come up behind the Mandalorian and haul him onto his feet with her hands beneath his arms. Omera stood herself, gripping Winta as she planted shaky boots beneath her on the grass. 

“The barn,” she told Cara, who only nodded before steering Din towards the building, her hands braced as anchors on either one of his shoulders. He moved dumbly with her, not really walking so much as ambling across the ground. Omera looked out to the villagers, taking in their terrified expressions, all their looks of uncertainty. She saw Idane’s face among them, red with tears, and felt another sob build up in her throat.

“It’s okay,” she said hoarsely, wondering if any of them even heard her. “He’s okay.”

* * *

He sensed Cara moving around the barn, grabbing blankets and bedding and so many other things he could not look up to watch her do. He knew he had to take off the kid’s swaddling and dry him properly, that it was important to keep him warm.

 _“Ad’ika,”_ he whispered, unable to stop from rocking the boy. His crying had settled into a quieter, hiccuping mewling, interspersed with small wet coughs. The boy’s mouth and nose were running wet with excess water still being coughed up. He had to wipe his face clean, he had to—he had to do something. 

“Hey,” Cara said, coming into view as she squatted down in front of him. Her hand gripped his wrist, but he couldn’t look up. “Hey. We need to get the kid out of that.”

“I know,” he replied automatically. His body was not working properly, and part of him was furious at how numb he felt, but even that fury was distant, far away in a fog he could not wade through. 

Cara lifted the boy gently from his hands, and to his surprise he let her. He looked up, unable to let the kid out of his sight, and watched her strip off the jumper and hang it over a box. Then she rubbed him dry with a blanket before grabbing a new one to swaddle him in. 

And he sat there, watching her.

She was done quickly, and knelt down to hand the kid back to him before pausing. “You need to take off your gloves,” she told him, nodding to his hands. “And roll up your sleeves. I’ll leave if you don’t want me to see, but—”

“Yeah, okay,” he murmured thickly, and began plucking at the gloves’ fingers to pull them off. It was then he realised how badly his hands were shaking; it took several attempts before he could gain enough purchase on the fabric to pull them off of his hands. They fell with a wet slap in front of him, and then he reached for the buttons at his wrists that kept the bodysuit secure to his forearms. They ripped open and he rolled the sleeves back, exposing his skin to the humid evening air. Cara laid a large, thick towel over his arms and lap with one hand before finally passing the kid back down to him. He reached up through the barrier of the blanket and settled the kid in the cradle of his lap, tucking the extra blanket around him. Cara had swaddled his head with the one she’d wrapped him in, and the kid stared up at him now, still gurgling faintly, still mewling.

 _“Ad’ika,”_ he whispered to the boy, who was looking up at him through the blanket that now framed his face. His eyes were large and dark, and shiny with tears. _“Ad’ika.”_

“Djarin,” Cara said, and there was enough steel in her tone that it broke the surface and he looked up. “Are you alright?”

“No,” he said back. There was nothing else to say.

Cara seemed shaken by his answer, but he couldn’t find it in himself to reassure her—there was no way to muster the energy to do anything but hold the kid. The world was dull and wet, but at least the boy was dry and warm. 

At some point he looked back down, and at some point Cara left the barn. He couldn’t remember when either of those things happened, but he knew now that he was staring at the kid, and the kid was staring back at him, and that meant he was alive. 

For a while he drifted, watching himself from over his own shoulder, his eyes hanging from the rafters of the barn as his body hunched around the kid. He could feel something tug and pull at the base of his skull, straining against some membrane in his mind that thinned but did not break. It tasted like bile and fear as it curdled at the back of his throat, but the memory never fully surfaced. He hoped that was a good thing.

Safe and warm. The kid was safe and warm. That was all that mattered.

Crying eventually broke through the haze. For a moment he thought it was the kid, but the sound was coming from outside of them, to his left. Small hands were touching his knee, drawing close to the kid but never touching him. He registered that it was Winta, and wondered how long she’d been sitting there.

She sniffled. “Is he—is he—”

“He’s okay,” someone else said, hushing the little girl.

Omera. 

That was the wave that broke his bow, and he surfaced again to find them both in the dim humidity of the barn, watching him. His throat constricted so tightly he could barely breathe, and he watched Winta’s tearful face stare up at him as his heart thudded painfully against his ribs.

He had to speak, he knew that. But he couldn’t breathe.

“How is he?” Omera whispered. She was still in her wet clothes as she sat down in front of him, her hands never fully leaving her daughter. Winta sat by his left knee, peering into his lap at the kid and fidgeting nervously.

“He’s okay,” he managed to rasp out. “He’s okay.”

“You told me,” Winta whispered desperately. “You told me to watch him, and I gave him to Turen, and now he’s hurt and I didn’t watch him and he’s—”

“No,” he interrupted, and cleared his throat. He had to come up for air now. He had to deal with reality—for Winta’s sake if nothing else. “It’s not your fault.”

“You said he was my respon—”

“He is _my_ responsibility,” he corrected her, his words gaining some force to them as he spoke. “And I wasn’t watching him. It’s my fault.”

Winta was staring up at him doubtfully, her bottom lip quivering, but she accepted his words with a numb nod of her head. She looked down at the kid then, and her hand crept back onto the blanket. 

“Can I hold him?”

Omera placed a hand on her daughter’s arm. “Winta—” 

“Sure,” he murmured, and held the kid out gingerly to the girl. She grabbed for him, her hands supporting his head and back with an incredible tenderness. The kid’s mewling had quieted, and he even cooed when he saw Winta. Her face crumpled at that, and she held back a sob as she looked at him. 

“Hey, Fuzzy,” she whispered, so quietly it barely left her mouth.

“You’re still soaked,” Omera said across from him, and he broke away from Winta to look over at her. 

“So are you.”

She smiled and reached out, patting her hands over the blanket covering his arms to soak up the water still clinging to him. “Do you have any other clothes?” she asked.

He shook his head numbly. “It’s alright.” 

He wanted to stop her, because he could already spend three lifetimes repaying this debt to her and still come up short, but a lot of him was still not working properly, and his body did not move the way he wanted it to. It should terrify him, but that part of him wasn’t working, either. 

“I can get you some clothes to wear until this dries,” she told him, and there was no strength in him to argue. He watched her hands pat the blanket instead, feeling the pressure through the fabric, but he felt it in a way that he had not when Cara had done the same. 

* * *

The rest of the day was spent in quiet. She suspected that Winta continued to wear the holster the Mandalorian had given her in an effort to feel prepared for any other threat that came their way, even if Omera had stowed her training gun in the house. Turen was beside himself with shame, inconsolable by both his parents and the other children. Any attempts to assure him that it had been an accident, that the Mandalorian did not blame him for what had happened, were met only with more sobs. 

Cara seemed to be the only one who was fully lucid, and she drifted around the longhouse and down along the pond paths, looking for something to do. Omera was well familiar with how troopers worked through trauma; always searching for an answer, and they usually found resolution in the next call to action—or a good fistfight. Neither were available to Cara, so she paced instead, breaking only to come by and ask what else they could do.

“Nothing,” Omera would tell her. “There’s nothing.”

The boy had not died, but she could feel the cloud of grief that hung over the village as if he had, and she was sure that was what was making Cara so antsy. She wanted to tell the woman of their history, of how a tumble into the pond drew back and exposed the nerves of every parent in the village, whether they’d lost a child to drowning or not. There had not been many, but even one was too much to bear remembering.

Nobody really did any more work, and the longhall was oppressively quiet at dinner. Even the children were somber, leaving a spot on their bench for where the boy would usually sit. The other absences in the longhall were even more apparent—Turen and his parents ate privately in their homes, and Omera had not seen Idane since they’d pulled the boy from the pond. She suspected nobody would see the old woman for a few days.

And Din stayed in the barn with the child. 

Omera hadn’t wanted to leave him alone, but Winta could not look at the boy without bursting into tears, and she had been glued to Omera’s side the entire evening. She had told him to come find her if anything happened, and she trusted that he would. 

So she stayed away until night, when Winta tearfully fell asleep curled up against Omera’s side, still wearing the holster. She packed blankets behind her daughter to support her back, and smoothed her hair away from her forehead before slipping out of their hut. She took with her only a small pack of food. Din had told her that he wasn’t hungry, but she suspected otherwise, and she knew he would not eat any of the food in the barn if it meant depriving the child of a meal.

Omera crept quietly across the village. It took longer than usual to get to the barn, but she gave the spot by the ponds a wide berth. No one had touched it, and the path by the bank was still a slurry of mud and dead krill. 

As she approached the porch of the barn she could see through the thatched walls that there was a lantern on. She cleared her throat as she walked up the steps and spoke softly when she stopped at the door’s curtain. “Knock knock.”

“Come in,” she heard him reply, and she stepped inside to find him almost exactly the same as when she’d left him. She’d brought him a fresh set of clothes, but those were still folded up neatly on the table. The child was on top of the blanket in his lap, sleeping softly, and his arms were curled loosely around him. Cara was not there either, likely still wandering the forests. 

“How is he?”

“Good,” he said. “Fell asleep a while ago.”

She stepped further into the barn, and he looked up at her. He looked off-kilter somehow, like the shadows on his body weren’t settling properly. 

“You must be exhausted,” she whispered, giving him a soft smile. That must have been it.

He nodded stiffly. “Yeah.”

“I brought you some food,” she told him, rattling the pack in her grip. “Come sit at the table. I’ll take the baby.”

He nodded again at that, and pressed the kid to his chest as he struggled to stand. He seemed to have been sitting there for several hours, and she couldn’t imagine how sore his back must be. 

Omera set the food down on the table and went to him, offering support in one hand and reaching for the baby with the other. He took the former and surrendered the latter, and she cradled the boy by her shoulder as he struggled to get to his feet. His grip on her arm was tight, and she held fast as he pulled up his full weight with it. He must have been more tired than she thought.

“Thank you,” he murmured when he was fully standing, letting go of her immediately and walking to the table. She didn’t turn to face him, and after a moment she heard his helmet clink softly against the wood as he set it down beside him. 

“There’s only some cheese and fruit in there I’m afraid,” she said, and began to bounce her weight from one foot to the other as she held the child. “You’ll have to wait ‘til morning for a full meal.”

He didn’t respond to that. She let him eat in silence, and began to pace across the barn, being careful not to turn in his direction. The child’s breathing was steady but still sounded raspy. He would have to be watched for the first night to make sure he didn’t stop breathing, and after that, they would have to hope and pray that he didn’t develop any secondary complications. She had never seen anything even vaguely resembling whatever species he was, and the Mandalorian seemed unaware of what he was, either. Basic medical supplies could only go so far, and that was when the species being treated was familiar. 

She voiced none of those concerns right now. Instead she continued to rock the boy, soothed by the sound of his soft breathing. The floorboards of the barn creaked rhythmically with her bouncing weight.

“It’s been a while since I rocked a baby to sleep,” she said quietly, smiling to herself. “And he’s quite the cooperative little boy. Nothing at all like Winta when she was a baby. So fussy.”

Omera hadn’t really been speaking to him, only musing aloud, so it surprised her when he replied. “How is she?”

She began to turn towards him before catching herself. “Fretful,” she replied, pressing her cheek to the child’s swaddled head. “But she’s okay. I’m more worried about Turen. He’s distraught over what happened.”

“I should apologise,” he murmured, though he sounded far away when he spoke. “I shouldn’t have yelled at him.”

“It’s completely understandable why you did,” she assured him. “I can think of no greater terror.”

He said nothing, and she heard him put his helmet back on with a faint sigh, already done eating what little she’d brought him. He must have been starving.

The stool he’d sat on creaked as he shifted around, and she turned back to see him watching her bounce around the barn. She realised now why he looked so different—there was no grace in the way he held himself, none of his usual calm purpose. Every movement he made was a burden, like he was struggling against some unseen current. This day had cost him dearly.

“He’s okay,” she said softly, offering him a smile as she patted the boy’s back, and Din’s head bowed. His shoulders shook as his hands went limp between his legs, and again she heard that voiceless crackle, noise that had no words to it. If his boots had not been firmly planted on the ground, she suspected he would have fallen over. 

“You d—” He stopped himself and let out a breath. “I can’t, I….”

She waited as he struggled, drawing in breath like it was a great agony. The choppy rhythm to their conversations was something she was used to by now, and she could see him struggling for something, the words forming and then dying in his throat as he tried to grab for them.

“You saved him,” he said simply, visor still pointed to the floor. 

“It’s not the first time a child has fallen into the ponds,” she said, smiling sadly. “I’m just glad it was a happy ending this time.”

He shook his head, though not at her words. It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “You saved him,” he repeated, and she heard him wet his lips. And then, so softly she barely heard it, he spoke again. “You saved me.” 

Something else caught at the end of his words, something more he said, but it wasn’t Common. It must be Mando’a, she thought. She had no idea what it meant, but she heard the word _manda_ hitch out at the end.

He was still shaking, but he looked up at her now, and she went still at how heavy his gaze was. She didn’t know how she knew, but she felt the full weight of his body in his eyes, piercing beneath the visor of his helmet. “I don’t…” he trailed off. “There’s no words. There’s nothing—” His words cut off with a strangled breath, and she could see that he was floundering again, lost in whatever he could not say.

Omera set the boy down softly in the crib, making sure his chin was tilted up so he could breathe properly, and then went to sit down. She hooked the other stool her way with a foot and sat in front of him, offering her hands, palm up, elbows on her knees. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” she told him, watching his own hands, still hanging limply between his legs. 

“Something else, then,” he replied, and reached for her. He’d taken his gloves off, and she felt a jolt when their fingertips brushed. “Something—something else.”

“I understand,” she whispered. His hands had come up under hers, not quite touching, and she felt the heat of his palms radiate across her skin. “But there is no debt here.”

“There is,” he insisted, just as quietly. “And I can’t ever pay it off.”

Some of their earlier conversations began to make more sense to her, clicking softly in the back of her mind. Always thanking her, always trying to make up for his presence in the village somehow. She looked up at him, her mouth wobbling as she smiled. His helmet tipped up to meet her gaze. 

“Din,” she whispered, and he flinched at the sound of his name. “I saved your boy because I care about him—I care about you.”

“It’s not just that,” he croaked, but she shook her head. She wasn’t done yet.

“You deserve to be safe and happy,” she whispered. Her hands twitched with the urge to touch him, to frame his face and soothe away whatever part of his own history that led him to believe kindness was only a transaction. “There is nothing owed between us, only what is given freely.”

His chest heaved, a quick exhalation of breath that rasped against his visor. He repeated what he’d said earlier in Mando’a, though she understood no more of it now than she had the first time. His hands finally cupped hers, and she gasped at the contact. 

“Okay?” she asked. She needed him to understand. 

He nodded, his clothes rustling with the movement. “Okay,” he repeated, swallowing hard.

She wasn’t sure if she believed him, but it was a start. Omera pressed her hands into his, staring down at them. Her heart was beating wildly, thundering in her ears, and he was so close she could’ve rested her head against his helmet if she wished.

Her mouth trembled with the effort to keep from laughing, and it took all she had to speak again. “Caben told me,” she whispered, wetting her lips. “He told me about how Mandalorians kiss.”

He froze, stiffening in his seat as he stared at her. The room would have been silent were it not for the blood beating against her eardrums, and she held her breath as he watched her. Deliberating, she thought, and waited for an answer.

 _“Mirshmure'cya,”_ Din murmured thickly.

“Is that how you say it?”

“It means headbutt,” he replied, and now she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her. It seemed to surprise him, because he jolted upwards out of the stool. He dragged her up with him, his hands wrapped around her biceps, his grip hard and desperate. She could feel him trembling as he held onto her, as if she was the only thing anchoring him to the floor. 

“Are you alright?” she asked, tipping her head up to look at him. Their bodies were parallel but not touching, and she was glad for the grip on her arms so that she didn’t do something foolish like press herself into him.

“I don’t—” He drew in a sharp breath. “I’ve never done it before.”

“Well, neither have I,” she reasoned with a smile. “But it sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and his head dipped down. So close now, he was nothing but a steel blur, and Omera stood up on her toes to press her forehead to his helmet. 

She felt as much as heard the sobbing exhale of breath as it heated the inside of his visor’s glass, and she finally allowed herself the luxury of grabbing onto him, her hands fisting in the fabric by his hips. The grip on her arms tightened further, surely strong enough to leave bruises, and he pulled her in tight against him. She could feel now that his whole body was trembling, and she shuddered in return as all of him pressed into all of her. Parts of his suit were still a little damp from the ponds, and she felt her mouth twist up as tears pricked her eyes. 

She kept them squeezed shut and leaned into him. He was breathing laboriously, his chest heaving and his helmet rasping with each hoarse intake of breath against her ear. And there was no excuse this time for the heat coming off of him—it was not retained warmth from the sun, or the sweat of hard work. He was just _warm._

Her heart continued to beat wildly as she pulled her face back just enough to look at him. They were both shaking, both anchored to one another with fisting hands. “How was that?” she asked breathlessly, feeling as if she’d run a mile.

His answer was a swallowed back sob and a shaky nod, and she tipped her head down to press her forehead to his shoulder. A moment later she felt his visor against her own shoulder, and another laugh escaped her. 

“It’s not how I’m used to kissing,” she whispered into his cloak. “But I don’t kiss many people these days either.”

She swore she heard a short, sharp, breathless laugh come out of him, but it was hard to hear. She’d forgotten how loud it was to be close to somebody like this, with blood pulsing and breath choking out. It was exquisite. 

He was practically thrumming in her arms by now, still working through the high of holding her. She’d felt bits and pieces of him before—his arm, his hand, the brush of his back as she’d affixed his armour to his bodysuit, but nothing like this. There was no room for anything except the reality of lean and shuddering muscle. And judging by the desperate flush of his hips against her own, he was well aware of that fact.

Omera bit her lip and pressed a leg in between his, and her thigh met with something hard that she only now knew was definitely not his belt buckle.

“Oh,” he breathed, head shifting on her shoulder. “Oh— _don’t.”_

She stilled, but he didn’t pull away. His words had been a plea for mercy, not a denial of consent, so she only removed her leg, keeping herself still firmly entangled with him.

He continued to gasp into her shoulder, shaking, and she held him as he calmed down, letting an arm rise up and cradle his back as he caught his breath. 

A blanket of calm, almost sleepiness, washed over her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d held or been held by someone, especially not like this. His grip on her arms slackened, and the rest of him was surprisingly gentle and warm, even if his body was still strung rigidly against her own. 

“Are you alright?” she asked again, finally, and her hand crept up to the back of his neck where she settled her palm. 

He laughed out a breath and nodded against her, and she felt his helmet nudge into her cheek before he pulled back to look at her. “I’m not...” he breathed, “I’m not, um, used to that.”

His words sound like an apology. She smiled up at him. “But you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Omera looked down between them and nudged his hips again, dragging another strangled breath out of him. “I can help you with that, if you like,” she whispered, and felt her face heat like she was some shy stable girl.

His helmet tipped up towards the roof of the barn and he let out a sound that was almost a groan. She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“I don’t have to look at you,” she continued, smiling at him as his gaze came back down to her. “How do Mandalorians do this sort of thing?”

“Usually,” he replied breathlessly, “with other Mandalorians.”

“Usually,” she echoed, and his chest rumbled as he laughed again.

“Depends on how closely you observe.”

“Well I don’t want to tempt you to heresy,” she said with a grin. “But I thought I’d offer.”

He pressed his helmet to her cheek again, and she couldn’t help but melt into him. He was still trembling, though it wasn’t as hard as before—it was more like a low tremor now, a jumping of the blood. 

“Omera,” he murmured, and she knew now why he’d flinched when she’d said his name earlier. “I don’t know if—I don’t….” 

“It’s okay,” she whispered, squeezing the back of his neck. She felt him lean back into the touch. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, and she heard the smile in his voice.

They stood there for another moment, holding each other, and then he eased away from her, and she reluctantly untangled herself from his body. The absence of his warmth was quickly replaced with hot, sticky summer air, though it still made her shiver. They spent the next few moments staring at each other, the air between them throbbing, until she did the responsible thing and broke the tether by looking back at the crib where the child still lay. 

“I can, uh,” she said hoarsely, “I can watch him, if you’d like to sleep.”

He did nothing but catch his breath for a minute, but then he replied. “It’s alright, I’ll watch him.”

“Okay,” she said, turning back to him and rubbing her hands over her arms, where he’d been holding her. “I should get back to Winta, then.”

“Okay,” he said back.

She made her way to the front of the barn, listening to his boots as he went to the crib. When she got to the curtain door she stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

“Goodnight, Din,” she said quietly. He was holding the kid now, pressed to his shoulder—right where her head had laid.

“Omera,” he replied, making her shiver, and he tipped his helmet towards her. “Thank you.”

She could only laugh. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again for all your wonderful, lovely, beautiful feedback!


	9. Rearing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Children are not an easy burden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright babes. Now that the finale has aired (some spoilers in the author’s notes if you haven’t seen it yet - go watch it!!!!), here's a few housekeeping notes.
> 
>   * Mando’s name is actually canonically spelled Din Djarin, not Dyn Jarren (I am buttmad), so I’m gonna be going back through the fic and updating that, and it’ll be the spelling I use for his name going forward
>   * This is gonna be a bit more canon-divergent than initially planned, mostly in terms of the way Din observes the Creed. Obviously this is a romance fic so he’s gonna be more lenient about his armour coming off and telling people his name for the sake of keeping the plot moving forward, but I’ve established his voice and relationship with the other characters enough by now that it would hurt the flow and continuity of the story to suddenly switch gears. so that’s not gonna change, woo
>   * We’re reaching about the halfway point in the story. Not sure how many more chapters this will be (I’ve outlined roughly 8-10 more), but I’m aiming for under 100k so I don’t drive myself insane. but who knows! I definitely don't
> 

> 
> Okay! With all that out of the way, have fun, stay safe and don’t do too many drugs

He watched the kid from the bank and waited. 

It wasn’t exactly clear  _ what _ he was waiting for. For the kid to spontaneously keel over, maybe, or decide that Din was no longer a trustworthy guardian and flee into the trees to live with the forest cats. Or make a weird face, even. 

Right now the kid was appraising the newest stone in his collection, given to him this morning when Din had stepped on it while wading into the spring. It was oblong, nearly translucent and faintly green like sea glass. It didn’t take much to amaze the kid, but he seemed especially taken with this one. He kept turning it over and over in his tiny hands, claws clicking on the hard surface. The smooth texture of the rock was the selling point, and Din made a mental note to keep an eye—or foot, rather—out for any other stones similar to that one.

But that was it. Everything was business as usual. Content, happy, and only a bit grumpy that his breakfast had just been a bit of sweet mash from a cooling jar in the barn. The kid didn’t even seem to register that he was sitting a few feet away from an open body of water.

He let out a sigh and the kid looked up at the sound, his large dark eyes turning in Din’s direction. 

“How you doin’, kid,” he murmured. It wasn’t a question, not really. 

The kid blinked back and let out a strained hiccup.

That was the only difference, as far as he could tell—the rasping sound of the kid’s tiny voice, like he had a sore throat. Din didn’t have much hands-on experience with drowning, but it made sense that it had done a number on the kid’s airways. Assuming he had a similar organ structure to humans, which was a stretch to begin with. He had lungs, at least, and definitely a voice box. A heart, too—he’d felt the steady thud of one somewhere in the kid’s chest, and he’d woken countless times the night before to make sure it was still beating.

Din rubbed at his eyes and cast a glance towards the sky. They’d arrived at the springs at dawn, and now the sun was beginning to cap the tops of the trees. He’d spent too much time here already, soaking in the water and staring at the kid. 

Waiting. For something.

He finished washing and then climbed out of the spring, feeling goosebumps flare across his body at the stark temperature difference. The only time of the day when it wasn’t sweltering hot was right now, early in the morning, and it was even cool beneath the thick canopy of the forest. 

He grabbed for his towel and dried off as he kept an eye on the kid, who was still enraptured with his new stone. He seemed to like small, round objects, judging by his collection of rocks and the amount of dried drool on the acceleration bearing back on the ship.

“Maybe you’ll like knucklebones when you’re older,” he said to the kid, who looked up at him again. “I’ll teach it to you. Fun game.”

That only got him more staring as he pulled on his bodysuit. It surprised him how utterly natural it felt to be without his armour in front of the kid. He hadn’t recited the  _ gai bal manda _ , and so it was technically a transgression to be bare in front of him, but somehow it felt right. He’d given everything else over to him already.

“It’ll be our secret,” he whispered, smiling more to himself than anything. “I won’t tell the Matriarch if you don’t.”

The kid babbled in that rasping, small voice of his as Din affixed his beskar plating onto his bodysuit. He was finally able to wear it without help again, and the relief of that freedom was sharp and sweet. 

When he was fully clothed and his hair was dry enough to put his helmet back on, he scooped up the stones laid out in front of the kid and tucked them securely in a pouch at his belt. Then he grabbed the kid, still holding his new stone, and looked back down the path to the village.

“Ready to get harassed?” Din asked him, poking him in the belly. He looked up at Din and grabbed his finger, and that was all the answer he needed.

* * *

He was used to being stared at. Even before coming into his full cuirass of beskar, the sight of a fully armoured  _ Mando’ade _ always drew eyes. What he was not used to were those same staring people coming up to him and initiating heartfelt conversation. He’d been expecting it, but he had not been prepared.

“How is the boy?” was a question he’d been asked half a dozen times by the time he got to the longhall, and his curt reply of “good” did not deter more from asking the same. He appreciated the concern, but he was also starving, and judging by the kid’s fussing, he was too.

He entered the longhall flanked by multiple villagers, all asking the same questions, all looking as if they wanted to request a turn to hold the kid but thinking better of it. He had to get away from them before that last scrap of inhibition disappeared. 

“Has he been breathing okay?” Galvin asked behind him.

“Yes,” he said offhandedly, casting around the hall for back-up. Cara was sat at one of the tables near the southern door, alone with her head down and resting on her forearms braced in front of her. An empty bowl sat nearby. She’d patrolled late into the night last night, and she looked as tired as he felt. 

“He’s not feverish, is he?” Fahl asked by his side, and Din turned to address the people hovering. They all stopped and waited for a reply, staring at him.

“He’s fine,” he said, trying not to sound too dismissive or rude. “I’m getting him some breakfast.”

That seemed to finally be enough of a clue for them to back away, though not before they profusely offered to be of any help should he need it. He accepted it with as much grace as he could muster, and then finally they dispersed. People were still watching, staring at the kid with eyes that promised to approach him given enough courage, which meant he had to bail and get back to the barn as quickly as possible if he had any hope of eating in the near future.

Din sighed, trying his best to look more imposing than normal, and turned around to see Omera walking towards him.

His heart clenched hard enough that breathing evaded him for a moment, and he only managed to take in a sharp breath when she smiled at him. The kid squeaked at the sudden pressure, and he consciously relaxed his grip.

Her hair was different, he thought. Braided with a new pattern, woven with fresh thread. It was all he processed before she stopped in front of him, holding a tray of food.

“Good morning,” she said, like she did every morning, but she didn’t say it the same way. It was warmer, softer, almost like she was telling him a secret. His heart clenched again.

“Hey,” he replied thickly.

“How is your boy doing?” she asked, shifting the tray to one hand so she could step up and cup a hand around the kid’s head. “No fever. That’s good.”

“He’s okay, I think.” He could feel the warmth coming off of her, standing this close. Her collar crest was different, too. Freshly woven.

She asked him a question that he didn’t catch, and he cleared his throat. “Sorry?”

“I said,” she repeated with a quiet laugh, “how are you feeling? How’s your back?”

“Well, thank you.” He looked down at the kid and rocked him a bit. “We’re good.”

“I got you both some breakfast,” she told them, and her hand fell away from the kid’s head as she looked back up at him. It was stupid to be envious of a baby. “I know how hungry you were last night.”

Even the mention of it sent a thrill through him. It was confirmation that he had not dreamed or hallucinated it the night before; that she had come to the barn and spoken in her soft measured voice and held him closer than any other person had ever dared to. It still hardly felt real.

He tipped his head to her, refocusing on answering her. “Thank you. I think I might hide out in the barn for a while.”

“Yes, I can see you’re the centre of attention today.” 

She handed him the tray and he took it, hiking the kid up so he had a proper hold of both. Omera was still smiling at him and he was still having trouble finding anything of value to say when she nodded like she had to get back to something. 

“I’d love to chat more, but—” She looked over her shoulder to Caben and Stoke. “I’ve got… things to deal with,” she concluded, sighing out the last part. “I can’t wait until this scrapping nonsense is over.”

“Of course.” He cleared his throat again and she paused. “You can come eat in the barn afterwards, if you’d like.”

Her grin widened. “I would like that, very much, but—”

They were interrupted by children approaching. Winta lead them, as always, bounding up to her mother and staring at the kid. She crooked a finger in the kid’s direction, making a kissy face at him.

“Good morning,” Winta said, forcing the nicety out quickly before getting straight to the point. “How’s Fuzzy?”

“He’s good.” He was also trying to reach for the honeycomb bread on the tray and looking very cross about not having long enough arms for the task. “I’m about to go feed him—”

“Can I feed him? Can I can I?” 

Omera frowned. “Winta—”

“Pleaaaase?” she insisted, her eyes going all doey. “I’ll bring him back to our table. Turen asked me to.”

The mention of the boy made Din look towards the kids’ table. It was empty except for Turen, who hid beneath the benches’ backrest when they locked eyes.

Now was as good a time as any, he supposed. Din sighed. “Fine. I’ll come with you.”

Omera raised a brow at him. “The kids can wait, surely?”

“I have some apologies to make,” he told her, sighing. “And some ground rules to set.”

The same brow twitched in amusement. “I see.” Omera nodded to her daughter and the other children hovering. “Go on back. He’ll meet you there.”

“Okay!”

They watched them speed off, and when Omera turned back to him she was smiling again. “Ground rules? Such as?”

“Don’t play near the water is a good start,” he replied, and to his delighted surprise, she laughed at that. He hadn’t meant to be funny. 

“A difficult undertaking on a krill farm, truly.”

“Right.” He paused for a moment. “Do you have any suggestions?” he asked then, completely sincerely. 

She tipped her head and pursed her lips. “Well,” she said after deliberating. “You could ask them to watch the boy in pairs.”

“Pairs?”

“Like a buddy system,” she explained. “So there's more eyes on him. Less of a chance that everyone’s backs will be turned.”

_ “Hukaat'kama,”  _ he murmured.

“What?”

“Stupid joke,” he said dismissively. “And that’s a good idea.”

Her brow furrowed. “Are you alright?” she asked, and stepped in close to ask it. There was still a grin on her face, but it had turned playful.

He swallowed. “Yeah, good. Great.”

“Good.” Her hand went to his arm, warm and broad. “You look good, by the way. In full armour, I mean. It’s been a while since I saw you in it.”

“Oh.” He looked down at himself. “Thank you.”

The silence between them quickly strained, and he let out a breath, along with his thoughts—a dangerous concession, but she was close, and no one could hear them. “And thank you, again,” he murmured, and her eyes softened. “For yesterday.”

“Which part?” she asked, still playful.

“All of it,” he told her seriously, and she sobered. “I mean it.”

“Don’t,” she replied quietly, like she was only speaking for him. “I enjoyed it.”

With a parting squeeze of his bicep she walked away, and he allowed himself the luxury of watching her do so before turning his attention back to the kids’ table.

“Come on,” he muttered as the kid squirmed impatiently in his arms. “Let’s go deal with this.”

* * *

Turen was a sullen boy by nature, and now he looked positively morose when Din passed the kid to Winta before taking a knee at the open corner of the table to address the boy. The other kids were uncharacteristically quiet, obviously wanting to hear. 

“Kid,” he said as softly as he could manage, watching Turen stare at his shoes. “Look at me.”

The boy peeked up at him through his mess of tousled hair, his small jaw clenching as he braced for what he surely assumed was a verbal lashing.

“I’m sorry,” Din began, and the boy’s eyes widened. “What happened wasn’t your fault. I should have been watching him.”

“You’re not mad?” the kid whispered, his hands fisting in the material of his pants.

“No,” he assured him. The tension drained out of the kid. “You’re not in trouble. But if you all want to keep watching and playing with him,” he continued, now addressing the rest of the table. “We have to go over some rules. I should have told you all from the start, but—”

“Rules like what?” Winta asked. She was feeding the kid his breakfast, parcelling it out in small chunks that he eagerly reached for. 

“Like he can never be left by himself,” he said, and got a bunch of nodding heads in return. “At least two of you have to be with him at all times. If you can’t do that, come find me.” 

They seemed less enthusiastic about that part. He loosened his shoulders. “I won’t ever be mad if bring him over to me,” he assured them. “Doesn’t matter what I’m doing.”

“What if you’re out patrolling?” Turen asked. “Or sleeping?”

“Find Cara,” he said, looking over his shoulder towards her table. “Or Omera. And—” He paused, considering his next words carefully. “Keep him away from the ponds, if you can.”

“But he really likes playing with krill,” Winta protested. “And he likes eating frogs.”

“I’ll teach you some other games to play with him,” he promised.

That was not the correct thing to say. Regret instantly lodged in his throat as a table of children stared at him wide-eyed, flabbergasted by the offer. He had to steer past that point, and fast.

“What games do you know?” one asked.

“We’ll go over that later,” he said quickly. “The point is—”

“Are they secret Mandalorian games?” Winta asked.

“Is it the wrestling you did with Cara?” Turen cut in.

“Do we get to use your guns?”

“No, just—”

The conversation at the kids’ table took significantly longer than he intended. He promised to teach them knucklebones and dice and maybe even bolo-ball if they just let him  _ finish,  _ but he’d long ago lost control of the discussion and spent most of it trying to course-correct. Winta was no help either, egging the other kids on by asking questions that they were too shy to ask themselves. 

“Can you teach us after breakfast?”

“Can I wear your cloak?”

“What does knuckle mean?”

He was saved finally by Cara, who had woken up and wandered over, thoroughly amused with the scene.

“What’s going on over here?” she asked, raising a brow.

“I’m laying some ground rules,” he said over his shoulder, and Cara’s smile only grew.

“Oh, is that what’s going on?”

“Do you know any fun games, Cara?” Turen asked.

“You bet I do,” she replied. “Is Djarin not teaching you anything?”

“He said he would later.”

“Sounds like he has some work to do then,” Cara mused, and he shot her a grateful look.

“Yes, I do,” he echoed, and stood up with a grunt. “We clear on the rules about the kid?”

He got a round of yesses from the table, and he nodded. “Good,” he said with a huff. “I’m going to eat.”

“Can we practice after?” Winta asked as he began to turn away. She pantomimed a gun with her index finger and thumb.

“Sure. You done with the kid?”

“Yeah,” she said reluctantly, and he was passed back over the table to Din. He grabbed his tray up from the table with his other hand and turned away.

Cara gave him a look that he ignored and finally,  _ finally  _ began to walk back to the barn.

“Thanks for that,” he tossed over his shoulder, and Dune caught up with him.

“Looked like you were struggling over there,” she said, smiling. 

He shook his head. “Like talking to drugged up mice.”

“I’ve never had the pleasure.”

He sighed. “You find anything last night?”

“In the woods?” she asked. “No. Trees, rocks, fungus, the usual.”

“You were out late.”

“Figured I’d give you two some room.”

He frowned at her, though she couldn’t see it. “Me and the kid? We’re all right—”

“You and Omera,” she clarified, and he was grateful she couldn’t see his mortified expression either.

He stopped short once they were out of the longhall. “Excuse me?”

“Trauma like that tends to bring people together,” she said, settling in her usual amused posture like she was leaning back against something only she could see. “I know from experience. Especially when you two keep making googly eyes at—hey!”

He began walking again, making a beeline for the barn and trying not to spill his breakfast.

“Does that mean I’m right?” she called, and laughter followed when he didn’t answer. 

* * *

“Stop locking your elbows,” the Mandalorian chided behind her. Then she felt his boot tap against the inside of hers. “And widen your stance.”

She was  _ doing  _ what he was saying, but he kept insisting, kept telling her to adjust more and more. It had been almost an hour and she still hadn’t shot the stupid gun.

“Okay,” Winta said, squaring her shoulders and tamping her feet down. Again. “Now I’m good.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what—”

A hand shoved at her shoulder and she tumbled sideways, doing her best to catch her footing and just barely staying on her feet. The gun dropped in the grass as she regained her balance, and then she rounded on him, glaring. “Hey! What was that for!”

“You’re not steady enough.”

“I am!”

“If I can shove you, that gun will knock you on your ass when you fire it.”

She continued to glare into his stupid faceplate that made his stupid head shine in the sun and grabbed the stupid gun off of the ground. 

“This is stupid,” she told him. “Let me just shoot something—”

He took the gun from her hand, ripping it from her grasp. “If you think this is stupid,” he said harshly, “then you aren’t ready to handle a weapon.”

She clenched her jaw and crossed her arms. It was hot, and she’d given up her tumble-ball to Balif so she could train with the Mandalorian, and now he was being mean. And she hadn’t even shot the  _ stupid  _ gun yet.

“You’re so rude,” she informed him. “Mama was wrong. You’re not very nice.”

He tucked the gun into his belt and shook his head. “You think shooting is nice? You think it’s polite?”

“More polite than you.”

He stared at her for a long moment, not saying anything, and then his head turned, looking towards where the kids were playing. Fuzzy was with him, sat quietly in the dirt while the kids kicked around Winta’s tumble-ball. 

Then he began walking away, and Winta’s eyes widened. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer her. He never did. 

She didn’t follow him because she didn’t want him to think she  _ wanted  _ to follow him, so instead she watched. He stepped around the kids playing in the field and grabbed Fuzzy, hauling him up to rest by his shoulder like he always did and then turning straight back to her. Even by his walk she could tell he was angry, and despite herself she shrunk back when he approached her.

“He,” he began, pointing a hard finger at Fuzzy, who stared up at him, “is being hunted. By a lot of powerful people who want to hurt and kill him.”

She hugged her arms tighter around herself. Winta suddenly felt cold despite the heat. “Why?” 

“I have no idea,” he replied. “But it doesn’t matter. If they find him, they’ll kill him unless I kill them first.”

Tears pricked her eyes. She wanted him to go back to being rude again, because arguing was a lot nicer than this. “But he’s okay here,” she whispered. “He’s safe.”

“For now.” 

She swallowed and felt her chin quiver. The Mandalorian stared at her for a long minute, and she wanted to ask him to stop, to put Fuzzy back so he could watch the kids play with her tumble-ball. 

“Is he gonna be okay?” 

“As long as I protect him.”

“Are you? Gonna keep protecting him?”

She heard him sigh. He set Fuzzy down on the bench nearby, then knelt down and beckoned her over. “Come here.”

She shuffled over to him, still hugging herself, and looked between the Mandalorian and Fuzzy. She sniffled and saw his shoulders relax.

“They all carry guns,” he continued, his voice a lot softer now. “And it’s serious business to them.”

“It’s serious to me too,” Winta insisted, wiping at her face. “I want to—I want to protect Mama, and the village. And Fuzzy,” she added, looking at him. She went over to the bench and gave him a hug, and he let out a raspy coo.

“Then you have to perfect everything,” he said behind her, and she turned to look at him. “Shooting is the last thing you will do. Everything else before that matters just as much.”

She wiped at her face again and nodded. “Okay.”

He grabbed the gun from his belt and offered it to her, holding the barrel so she could take the grip. 

She walked back over to him, unfolding her arms. Both of her hands wrapped around the gun, just like he’d shown her how, but he didn’t let go, and she looked up at him.

“What’s first?” he asked.

“I check if it’s loaded, which it is,” she told him, her eyes flicking down to the blaster. “And the safety is still on.”

“And?”

“And I keep it pointed at the ground, away from my feet.”

He nodded and let go, then stood up. “Good,” he said. “Now widen your stance, and don’t lock your elbows.”

* * *

By evening, the Mandalorian allowed her to shoot the trunk of a tree, and suddenly all his rude nagging about proper stances made sense.

He was standing beside her, arms extended, both hands on his own blaster. She mimicked what he was doing as best as she could, keeping her eyes—and gun—pointed to the tree he’d marked with a strip of cloth tied around it.

“There’s two sights on that blaster,” he told her, removing one hand from his gun to point at the front of his barrel where a small tick of metal stuck out. “One at the tip,” he gestured, “and a notch at the rear. You line both of them up, and shoot at what the front sight is pointed at.”

She nodded and lined them up towards the middle of the tree, squinting out of one eye.

“Both eyes open,” he told her, sounding like he was smiling. “You want to see as much as possible.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. Can I shoot now?”

She was ready for the hand on her shoulder this time. Winta rocked in place but didn’t stumble, and the Mandalorian gave a satisfied nod.

“The gun is going to buck back hard when you fire. And it’s loud.”

“I know,” she said, and looked up at him. “I heard from the battle.”

He said nothing for a moment, then resumed his ready stance. “Alright. You can put the middle of your index finger on the trigger.”

She swiped it down and touched the trigger, feeling the metal give slightly when she tapped it. Winta took a few measured breaths, trying to remember everything he’d told her. Then she held her breath and squeezed the trigger.

She wasn’t ready for how loud it was or how hard the gun kicked in her hand, even though he’d told her to expect them. Both of her shoulders jarred back as a bolt of plasma left the barrel. She didn’t see where the shot went, instead dropping to her knees and letting the gun fall to the ground so she could cup her hands around her ears. The Mandalorian moved in her periphery, a hand on her shoulder again—although this time he wasn’t shoving her.

“Hey,” she heard him say, and watched as he flicked the safety of her gun back on with his free hand. He shook her gently. “Hey.”

She looked up, removing her hands from her ears and coughing out a breath. Her heart was beating so hard it was difficult to hear him. “What?”

“You hit the tree,” he told her, and she followed his pointing finger. Smoke rose from the bark about half a meter below the strip of cloth, rising up from a large singe mark.

“I hit the tree,” she repeated, and grabbed his arm as she stood up. The moment she got her feet under her, she dashed forwards, running to the edge of the forest and stopping in front of the marked tree. The singe mark was about the size of a credit, and she could hear it sizzling with heat. 

She heard the Mandalorian approaching behind her and turned, grinning up at him. “I did it! I hit the tree!”

“You did,” he said, and held out her blaster. “You also dropped your weapon and ran down range.”

She took the blaster, unloaded it like he’d showed her, and pushed it into her holster. “Down what?”

“You ran to the target,” he clarified. “That’s dangerous. You always get confirmation of a hit as far away as possible.”

“Oh.” She looked back over her shoulder at the singe mark. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he replied, grabbing something from his belt and stepping around her. He sprayed something on the tree from a tiny bottle, and ice crystals formed around the singe mark.

“What are you doing?”

“Freeze-drying where your bolt landed,” he explained, and looked down at her. “So the tree doesn’t catch fire.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that.

“It’s a risk of using plasma bolts.”

Winta frowned back up at the tree. “Will people still be able to see where I shot?” she asked after a moment.

She thought she heard him laugh, but maybe he’d just been exhaling. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He took the cartridge she’d unloaded and tucked it into a pouch, along with that weird spray he’d used, and her hand fell back down to the stock of her gun. “Does that mean we’re done?”

“For today,” he replied, and then added: “You did well.”

She beamed at him. “Thanks. And—” Her mouth twisted. “Sorry for calling you mean earlier. You’re not mean.”

“It’s alright,  _ verd’ika.” _

“What’s that mean?”

“Little warrior,” he told her. “It’s your word for the day.”

* * *

The Mandalorian started a campfire when the sun began to set, and Winta had been adamant about eating with him, so Omera brought their dinner out from the longhall to join them in front of the barn. 

“What are you doing?” she heard Winta ask, her hands planted flat on the ground and her hair sweeping the dirt as she watched Din hunched over a piece of his armour.

“Tuning my breastplate. You’re in my light, kid.”

“Oh, sorry.” Winta sat back and noticed Omera approaching. She smiled and waved. “Hi, Mama.”

“Hi, baby.” She passed her down a bowl as Din looked up from his gear, and she couldn’t help but grin at him. “Here’s yours,” she said by way of greeting. “And your boy’s.”

“Thank you.” He took them both as she sat down on his other side with her own, and while she didn’t obnoxiously peer over him like Winta, she was curious about the intricate wiring system that lay in the interior of his armour. 

Din swapped out the breastplate in his lap for his boy, sitting him on a leg and holding the tiny bowl out for him to drink from. The kid turned his nose up, and the Mandalorian’s helmet cocked.

“What? You love stew,” he murmured, and held the bowl closer. “Come on. I know you’re hungry.”

The kid whined again, struggling away from the bowl, and Din put it down, looking up at Omera in confusion.

She gave him a pained look. “He might shy away from liquids for awhile. It’s not uncommon. I should have thought of that.”

“Oh.” He looked back down at the kid, rocking him gently. “ _ Ad’ika,”  _ he murmured, almost crooning.

“We’ll have to get it into him somehow,” Omera continued, and he looked up. “He still needs fluids.”

“Right.” He sighed deeply, pausing for a moment. “He was good at the springs this morning.”

“Triggers aren’t always consistent,” she told him with a quirk of her mouth. “And the springs are a place of peace and quiet. It might be soothing enough to keep him calm.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, though he still sounded doubtful. Then he reached for his own meal and broke off some bread, offering it to the boy. He grabbed it immediately and shoved it in his mouth, making a contented noise.

“Mando showed me how to shoot today,” Winta cut in, breaking the somber mood of their conversation. Omera was happy for it, and smiled over at her daughter.

“I saw.”

“And I hit the tree!” Winta turned and pointed over at the edge of the forest where they’d been practicing. “That one there. I’ll show you when it’s light again.”

“Sounds like you had a fun time,” Omera mused, sneaking a peek at Din and bumping his shoulder. He looked up from his boy, his helmet tipping.

“It was fun,” he agreed, and she grinned at the warmth in his voice.

“The gun is  _ so  _ loud,” Winta continued around a mouthful of food. “And my shoulders hurt—”

“Do not talk with your mouth full.”

“Sorry.” She swallowed. “Anyway, it was  _ really  _ loud, and the tree started smoking where I shot it, because that’s what plasma does, it sets stuff on fire, and we had to freeze it so it didn’t catch burst into flames, and…”

She listened to her daughter regale their adventures with glee as she ate her meal. Every so often her shoulder would bump Din’s, and every so often she thought maybe it wasn’t just an accident. He didn’t look up from his boy, but whenever they brushed up against one another she could feel him lean into it until he caught himself and pulled back. 

Eventually Cara joined them, sitting down on the other side of the fire with a generous cup of spotchka. She only greeted them with a raise of her tankard, not wanting to interrupt Winta.

“Next we’re gonna start drawing from the hip,” the girl continued, grabbing at her holster. It was empty now, the gun back in the barn, but that did not stop her from wearing it everywhere she went.

“Eventually,” Din cautioned. “Maybe. If you learn fast enough.”

“Oh I will,” she assured him, her chest puffing out with confidence. “I’m already a great shot.”

He made no noise, but Omera felt his shoulder shake with silent laughter, and she grinned over at her daughter.

“I hope you’re thanking him for all theses lessons.”

“More or less,” Din muttered dryly. He bounced the leg the boy sat on, who gurgled back at him. “I get free childcare out of it, so that’s thanks enough.”

“Speaking of,” Cara cut in, nodding to the kid. “How’s the little tyke?”

“Good, mostly,” he replied, the subtle thread of uncertainty still in his voice. “He doesn’t really react to much.”

“He’s ticklish,” Winta informed them.

“I meant more like—events,” Din said. “The stuff that’s happened… he doesn’t seem to care. Or if he does, I can’t tell.”

“Children are very resilient,” Omera assured him. “He’ll be alright.”

“I hope so.”

They watched Din continue to feed the boy in silence, who ate up the bread with vigour. He began dipping bits of it into the stew, which seemed to work, and Omera made a mental note to hide away extra bread for the boy.

Cara sighed, breaking the quiet, and leaned back against one of the low log benches around the fire. “Taking a break tonight,” she told them. “There’s nothing in those woods.”

“You’ve earned it,” Omera said with a smile. “Between that and scrapping I’m surprised you haven’t fallen over.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” she muttered, draining her cup. “All that shit’s almost done anyway.”

Winta’s eyes widened at the bad word, and Omera shot her daughter a warning look before speaking again. “We’ll have to start loading it soon.”

“Where you planning on hauling it?” Din asked, settling back against his own bench. “I checked the star maps earlier. There’s no scrap depots nearby.”

“The place isn’t on most star maps,” Omera told them, and both gave her curious looks in return. “My late husband—his sister owns a scrapping depot. Mostly caters to rebel scrappers digging around old Imperial shipyards.”

Cara nodded with satisfaction. “That’s an honest living.”

Omera nodded. “She keeps it quiet, flies under the radar. And she’ll pay a decent price for a walker.”

“What should we tell her?” Din asked. “So she knows we know you?”

“Nothing, because I’m coming with you.”

She got a round of indignant  _ whats _ , including one from her daughter, and she sighed. “It only makes sense for me to—”

“It’s too dangerous,” Din said immediately, she turned to look at him.

“It isn’t,” she replied, just as forcefully. “And I know how to take care of myself.”

“I mean,” Cara cut in. “One of us is gonna have to stay here anyway, make sure the trees are empty of raiders.”

Din glared at her. “You said you didn’t find any.”

“Not today,” she replied, and he sat up. “But I found two before that.”

“You  _ what—” _

“Oh, relax, will you? They were barely alive when I got to them.”

“You didn’t think to mention this to me? The other person patrolling the forest?”

“You mean the highly paranoid guy with a bad back who’s micromanaging everything in the village?” Cara bit back. “Yeah, no. I was going to wait until you’d calmed down—”

“That’s great,” he spat, setting the kid down by Winta and sitting up properly to point an angry finger at her. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

Cara snorted. “Yeah, okay. I could say the same thing to you, pal.”

“Please stop,” Omera said, not loudly but also not softly. “Cara told me about the raiders. We were keeping an eye out while you healed.”

He looked between the two of them, his helmet swivelling back and forth while he decided who to direct his anger towards. 

Omera made the decision for him by speaking again. “And besides which, that is not the point. The point is I’m travelling with one of you to the scrapping depot, and you can sort out which one of you that is later.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over them after that, and it did not dispel for the rest of the evening. Winta sat quietly with the boy, feeding him the rest of his meal. Cara got up to go to the longhall for more spotchka, but she was gone a lot longer than was strictly necessary to fill her tankard. Din settled himself back against the log again, and after a while Omera realised he’d fallen asleep. His breastplate was still off, set beside him on the log, and she could see his chest move up and down evenly with deep breaths. Despite the argument, she was glad he was getting rest—he’d seemed exhausted this morning, and she knew sleeping beside a recovering baby was nerve wracking.

“Are you still angry, mama?” Winta eventually asked her.

She smiled at the girl. “No, I’m not. And don’t worry yourself about it. We’ll get it sorted.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” she said, hugging the boy close to her chest. 

Omera got up from her spot and walked around to the girl, sitting down beside her. “It won’t be for long,” she assured her, swiping Winta’s hair back. “And I’ll be safe. Cara will be with me, or the Mandalorian.”

Winta leaned into her shoulder and sighed. “I can come with you too,” she offered.

“Maybe one day,” Omera told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “But you’re too young yet.”

Winta sulked, pressing her face into the boy’s head, and Omera rubbed her back. She knew her daughter well enough to know this would not be the last conversation they had about the trip, and she doubted they would be this calm about it next time. But this was miles above allowing a gunslinger to teach her daughter how to shoot like a cowboy, and she would have to do her best to impart that difference onto her.

Din’s boot jerked in her periphery, and she looked up to see him tensed and rigid. For a moment she thought he was awake again and had seen something, but his head was still slack against the log. Then he huffed out a breath and his head lolled across the bench. 

Winta looked up, too, and the boy began to wriggle and squirm in her arms. She glanced at Omera for an explanation.

“He’s just having a dream,” she told her. And it didn’t look like a pleasant one.

His hand settled onto the grip of his blaster and the boy let out a strangled noise of protest. Winta rolled to her knees and set him down, and he immediately waddled over to Din, hands outstretched. Omera stood up as well, keeping close to the boy and ready to pull him back if he startled the Mandalorian. 

His boot twitched again and his shoulders bunched inwards, towards his chest, as if he were bracing for something. The boy crawled on top of his leg and climbed up his chest, made easier by the lack of his breastplate, and stood up when he reached Din’s collarbone.

“What’s he doing, Mama?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, pressing a cautioning hand out to Winta.

The child put both hands to the Mandalorian’s helmet and closed his eyes, and his body began to tremble with some unseen effort. Omera held her breath as she watched.

It only took a moment. Din’s body went slack as he let out a quiet, relieved sigh, and the boy lowered his hands from the helmet. Then he climbed down towards the crook of the Mandalorian’s right arm and settled into it, pressing his face against his ribs and closing his eyes again.

“What did he do?” Winta whispered, and Omera shook her head again in wonder.

“I don’t know, baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any gun related facts in this that turn out to be wrong is entirely my fault and possibly the fault of the gun range blog I was combing through while writing this. also this is not an endorsement to give nine year-olds guns. do not recommend doing that at all


	10. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a few things to take care of before they leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, friends! Please accept my unconditional love and lifetime debt to you all for the continued feedback and wonderful comments on this fic.

She knew something was wrong the instant she left the longhall. Even the sun heating her face felt sickly and oppressive, but it took her a moment to understand why.

Her eyes had drifted naturally towards western horizon, trying to escape the glare of the sun, and that was where she found Caben. He was alone, stabbing a spade into the dirt and keeping his eyes swept to the ground. She hadn’t seen him at breakfast, and Stoke had been uncharacteristically quiet in his absence.

As Omera approached, she saw that his face was shiny, and not with sweat. She began to walk faster, her heart speeding up. “Caben,” she called softly, and he flinched up like she’d frightened him. His eyes were wide and red, his face blotchy from crying. The spade stilled in his hand, the tip pierced into the dirt.

“Hey,” he said back stiffly, his throat working. Sometimes she forgot how young he still was, and right now he looked like a scared little boy. 

“What are you….” She trailed off as she got closer, and saw the outline he’d drawn in the dirt. “What—”

“Idane,” he croaked, and she looked up. “She said Rend had a blood infection. She told me—she told me to start digging.”

A ball of lead formed in the pit of her stomach. “A blood infection,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” He wiped his face on one of his sleeves and sniffled hard. “He’s not even—he’s not dead yet.” His voice cracked on the last word, and his knuckles whitened around the handle of the shovel.

Omera dug around in a pocket until she found a kerchief and handed it to Caben, who took it with a grateful, silent nod. She appraised the rectangular grave he’d outlined, trying to sort through what he’d just told her. The village was too small to have a formal graveyard—they just buried people when they needed to, and it had been years since the last death. And though Caben was right, that Rend wasn’t yet dead, sepsis was not something he could recover from. Even if they left today to sell off the scrap for medical supplies, Rend would long be dead by the time they returned. 

She placed a hand on his shoulder, and for an instant there was a flash of hope in face as he waited for her to tell him to stop digging, to tell him that Idane was overreacting, and the words lodged in her throat. “I’m sorry, Caben,” she managed to get out, and his eyes slipped to the ground again.

“This sucks,” he told her, wiping his face with the kerchief.

“I know.” She looked over her shoulder at Rend’s hut, where Idane must be, and let out a long sigh. “I’ll see if I can find someone to help you. It’s too hot out to do this yourself.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I have to get ready to leave,” she said, turning back to him. “As soon as possible. Before anyone else—before they get sick.”

He nodded. “Are you taking the Mandalorian with you?”

She smiled. “Don’t worry about me. Ulan isn’t a dangerous woman.”

“It’s been a long time since any of us have gone offworld,” he replied, his eyes drifting back to the outlined grave. “And it’s to sell scrap somewhere off republic grids. I don’t like it.”

“I’ve spent more of my life off Sorgan than on it,” she reminded him gently, and he forced a lopsided smile. “And doing far more precarious work than scrapping.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “It just… sucks.”

“I think it’ll be fun,” she countered, punching him—gently—in the arm. “And I’ll have to take Din or Cara with me anyway. I don’t know how to operate interstellar craft, especially not one as old as his.”

“As long as it’s somebody who knows how to shoot,” Caben replied, rolling his shoulders. “Anyway, I should… get back to this.”

“I’ll go harangue Stoke into helping you,” she told him, patting his shoulder in parting. He gave her another brave smile, and she turned away to face the sun.

* * *

He woke up with the sun glaring into his faceplate and his neck screaming at him to move. It took him a moment to recall that he’d fallen asleep by the fire he’d made last night, and another to register that the kid was poking him insistently in the ribs.

Din sat up with a groan, rolling his neck back and forth as he set the kid down in his lap. Big, pleading eyes stared up at him, and even before the squeaking began he knew what the kid wanted.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, settling the kid by his shoulder and rolling to his feet. “Let’s get breakfast.”

Din paused when he stood up. Something was off. He looked down at the ground where he’d been sleeping in confusion. The movement had felt too fluid, too easy. He stretched out his neck again, frowning, and the kid squawked some more for food.

Din ignored him as he held an arm out and rolled it around in the socket, testing the give of his back. Then he swapped the kid to his other shoulder and tested his other arm. No stiffness, no straining. He hunched his shoulders forward and bent slightly at the waist, bracing for a spike of pain that did not come.

The kid continued to make noise.

Din looked down at him in wonderment as he arched the small of his spine, confident he would find a sore spot, but there was nothing. “What the hell,” he whispered, and the kid responded with a mewling coo. “Sorry, yeah. Food.”

He grabbed his breastplate by the bench and walked carefully to the porch of the barn, certain the pain would come throbbing back at any moment. Ducking inside, he went for the leftovers he always kept squirrelled away by his cot—and almost ran directly into Cara.

He stopped short and so did she. They appraised each other in silence (aside from the kid gurgling by his shoulder) until her mouth twisted in an annoyed frown and she shouldered past, going to her cot beside the door. He swallowed back a sigh and went to his own bedding, digging around his pack for some food. The kid sat on the bed in the meantime, watching him impatiently and continuing to make a whole lot of noise. 

“You’re okay,” he murmured tiredly. When he found something edible, he knelt down beside the bed and began breaking up bite-sized pieces of a tuber, which he then handed off to the kid. He devoured each one, grabbing for the next bite before he was done chewing the one in his mouth.

He could feel Dune watching them and looked up at her. She didn’t duck away, but she also didn’t say anything. Her expression was plain and open, clearly trying to work through how confrontational she wanted to be this early in the morning.

He solved that for her by clearing his throat. “I’m sorry,” he told her. Perhaps he needed to say that a few times, but he’d start with their most recent squabble. “About last night.”

The tension in her shoulders cut loose, and she sighed. “I really wasn’t trying to hide anything from you,” she replied, sitting down by the bench with a rag and a tuning tine. She unholstered her blaster and began to strip it down. “It was just—I didn’t want to add anything else to your plate.”

“I know.” The kid squawked at him and he fed him another piece of tuber. “But I need to know what’s going on,” he said quietly. “So we can work together on this.”

“I know,” she echoed, blowing out a breath. “And I need you to trust me. I had—I  _ have— _ a handle on things around here.”

“I do trust you.” He looked back at the kid, who’d wrapped a hand around one of his fingers to make sure he didn’t go anywhere. “More than anyone right now,” he whispered, handing the kid another piece of food.

She scoffed at that, but her smile turned soft when he didn’t laugh along with her. “Don’t get all gooey on me.”

“You won’t hear it again,” he promised dryly, and she snorted again.

“Well, don’t go that far. If you want to sing my praises, I won’t stop you.”

The quiet that followed was amicable, not strained, and the kid stopped making a racket now that he was being given a steady stream of food. Cara remained at the table, working through disassembling and cleaning her sidearm, and the familiar clicks and pings of metal being stripped and tuned were soothing to listen to.

He was almost done feeding the kid breakfast when Cara spoke, her words once again carrying their usual irreverence. “Sooo,” she hummed out slowly. “What’s your take on bringing farm girl offworld?”

“She’s capable,” he replied vaguely.

“Obviously. I was looking more for your personal feelings on the matter.”

“Thought you said you didn’t want to get all gooey.”

“Is that what you’re feeling? All gooey inside?”

He sighed and cut a hard glance in her direction. “What are you asking me, exactly?”

“Just saying,” she said, focusing on the blaster in her hands. “If you want to spend some quality alone time with her, I can’t think of a better ticket.”

He decided not to respond to that, which was apparently no better of an option than if he had. Cara only let the air stew with annoyance for a moment before prodding him again.

“What’s third base for Mandalorians, anyway? Holding hands?”

He tossed the plate on the bed and stood up, making the kid squeak, and Cara looked up in surprise at the sudden movement. “Can you not?”

Her mouth quirked. “Just a bit of harmless teasing.”

“Yeah, you and every other person in the galaxy.” He fiddled with one of his vambraces, trying not to grind his teeth. “I don’t need to hear anymore of it, least of all from you.”

She sobered, setting her blaster down. “Right. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be an ass.”

“It’s fine,” he said brusquely, then looked down at the kid. “I don’t even know if I’m going anyway.”

“Really?”

The surprise in her voice made him glare at her, and she held her hands up. “I didn’t mean it like that. But it’s your ship. And if Omera’s going… I just figured you’d tag along.”

“I don’t know.”

“About going or about Omera?”

“Both,” he murmured. “Neither. I don’t know.”

Cara set down her sidearm and turned to face him. He realised she was sitting in the same seat Omera had sat in the other night, and it did nothing to calm his thoughts. “You wanna talk about it?” she asked, her mouth regaining its usual quirk.

He rolled his neck again and sighed, wondering how much of this conversation he wanted to entertain. 

“It’s not permitted,” he said after a moment.

“What, like, relationships?”

“Clan above all,” he replied, watching the kid grab for the empty plate beside him. “And mine’s in hiding. It’s a gamble to even tell you my name.”

“You really think she’s gonna sell you out to the Imps if she catches a look at your face?” Cara asked. “Or anyone else, for that matter? You’ve taught her kid half your language by now anyway.”

_ “kaysh cuyi ruusaanyc,”  _ he murmured. The kid was scratching his claws against the wooden plate, garbling happily at the noise it made. “She is worthy. And children are different.”

“Clearly,” Cara said, but there was no longer any humour in her voice. “But so is Omera.”

“Maybe,” he whispered, though he agreed with her. 

“So is that your only roadblock to romantic bliss? Your clan?”

“It’s more than that.”

She raised a brow. “Such as?”

He blew out a breath. “It’s—it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about this any longer.”

She raised a brow but thankfully didn’t argue. “Suit yourself.” Cara picked up her weapon again and shifted back to the table. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Which is?”

“Are you going?”

“I told you, I don’t know.” He knelt down by the bed again, watching the kid play. “If I go, it means leaving him here. I’m not taking him to an off-grid scrapyard.”

“Ah. I’m sure Omera’s kid would look after him.”

“She’s nine,” he replied. “It’s a lot to ask of a child.”

“There’s also the rest of the village,” she reminded him. “They’re all chomping at the bit to even hold the little guy. I don’t think you’ll have a problem finding someone to care for him. And they owe us both big time anyway,” she added with a grin. “We’re giving them the VIP treatment for pennies.”

“And lodging,” he added, but he understood her point. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“Otherwise I’m going,” she said. “But I’ve never flown a ship as old as yours, so we’ll see how that works out. And,” she continued with a grin. “If Omera makes googly eyes at me the way she does you, I’m cashing in on that pronto.”

* * *

It was mercifully cool inside the Mandalorian’s ship. She took her time as she walked the cargo bay, reading off the small tablet Din had offered up during talks of using his ship as transport. It had a readout of the  _ Razor Crest’s _ specifications on it, including fuel reserves, total hold space, and various safety thresholds. Some of it was meaningless to her—she was mostly concerned with how much he could haul, and how far. 

The numbers were already well familiar to her by now, but looking at them again gave her a sense that she was doing something. It was almost too hot to work the scrap field outside, and Fahl and Sora had nearly completed the sorting process, so her presence would be more bothersome than helpful. The best thing she could do right now was wait, and it was driving her mad.

She was so engrossed in reading off the tablet that she didn’t hear the boots on the gangplank. A polite clearing of the throat made her jump up with a start, turning on her heel to find Din standing halfway up the aft ramp of the ship, his helmet cocked slightly in questioning. A spike of embarrassment ran through her as she realised she’d been caught entering his ship without asking.

“Good morning,” she said automatically, and he made his way up the rest of the ramp. “Or afternoon, now,” she added, glancing out at the sky. “It’s hard to keep track of time in here.”

“It is,” he agreed, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. There was no hint of irritation in his voice at her rummaging around his ship, and so she relaxed with a smile.

“How is your boy?”

“Cranky,” he replied with a sigh. “He’s upset he can’t play by the ponds, I think. I came by to grab dice.”

She laughed. “Ah, yes. I heard that you promised to corrupt the children with bar games.”

He hesitated at that, perhaps mistaking her joke for actual criticism, and she remedied that by nodding down to the tablet in her hands. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. I’m just trying to—plan all of this out.”

“You’re serious about going?” he asked her. It was a different version of the dismissal he’d made last night—there was no bite this time, but she could still hear the apprehension in his words.

She took a deep breath, trying not to sound too defensive without sounding uncertain herself. “Rend is going to die,” she informed him, and he straightened against the wall. “Even if we left now and got antibiotics, he wouldn’t make it.” She looked out at the village again, past his shoulder. Caben had finished digging the grave, and she’d told him to work inside the hall for the rest of the day. “It’s nice here, but... it’s fragile. One bad turn, and—well, I don’t need to tell you how close tragedy is at hand.”

He nodded at that. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and the gravity of it made her eyes sting. 

She felt her chin tremble and swallowed hard. “You and Cara… you’ve done more for us than I could’ve ever hoped for. There are a million versions of our story where this village is razed and we’re all dead. And the one thing that can keep that reality at bay once you two have moved on is money.” She nodded towards the scrap piles behind them, out in the field. “I have no choice but to go.”

His helmet tipped down towards his crossed boots, and she heard him exhale. “Okay,” he said after a pause. 

“And I’d like you to come with me,” she told him, and he looked up. “Cara took over keeping the village secure when you injured your back, and I trust no one more than her to keep everything moving smoothly while I’m gone. I spoke with her about it, and she agrees with me.”

“Thought you said your village had no leaders,” he said with a touch of amusement.

She quirked a brow. “Not in times of safety. But people need someone to look to for guidance in turmoil, and they all adore Cara.” 

“And you,” he added. She heard the knowing in his voice, of what was left unsaid. He could protect, but he could not lead, he could not deliberate and manage—not with a group of people terrified by his very presence. 

“Which is why  _ I _ need help to make sure everything goes smoothly,” she told him, smiling. “A buddy system, if you will. And I’m at a loss as to how to fly your ship.”

He chuckled quietly at that. “That’s not in your infinite repertoire of skills?”

“Sadly, no. I just know everything else.” She set down the tablet and went to him. He stood up immediately, his hands falling to his sides, and she settled her hand on the now ever-familiar spot on his arm. His own came up and cupped her elbow, as if bracing her for something. “I know you’ve just been through a hardship with your boy, and that you’re still recovering from—from everything,” she said, gesturing towards the stars. “But I want you to come with me.”

His helmet tipped down again as he deliberated. She grabbed his other arm and pressed her forehead to his visor again, and he choked out a breath as he immediately pulled her close, as if he’d been aching for her to do it again.

“I want to,” he whispered, and she knew he wasn’t just talking about the trip. “But I don’t—I don’t know.”

She rocked her head against his, shivering at the temperature difference between his body and the ship. “We can figure it out together,” she whispered, smiling. “Whatever that looks like, whatever happens.”

Omera pulled in closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and settling herself into the grooves of his body. He responded in kind, his visor finding her shoulder again. He wasn’t trembling this time—he was rock solid and resolute.

“Thank you,” he whispered, the words choked and quiet. 

“I feel like we always end conversations this way now,” she whispered, and she felt his back rumble with laughter. 

“Better than the way I end most others.” He pulled away to look at her, his head cocked in appraisal. “I’ll come with you,” he told her then, and her face hurt with the grin that spread across it. 

“Good.” Her fingers brushed his helmet, still warm from the sun, and his head tilted to lean into them as if he could feel it. “It’ll take a few more days to prepare everything, but we’ll have to leave soon.”

“I can help,” he replied. “My back’s healed.”

She drew away in surprise. “What?”

He shrugged, and this close, she felt the movement. “Woke up this morning and it was fine. My neck, not so much,” he added, rolling his head around.

Omera shook her head. “I don’t—” She didn’t finish her sentence because she couldn’t find anything else to say. She believed him, but she couldn’t fathom why. “That’s one less problem, I suppose,” she said instead.

He nodded, glancing around the cargo bay before looking back to her. “I should grab my dice then,” he replied, and her head tipped again to press against his.

* * *

He rounded the corner of one of the huts on the northern banks of the village, immediately spotting the tuft of a headscarf poking up from behind a collection of wicker barrels. When the tuft didn’t move at a clearing of his throat, he tapped the lid of one of the baskets with a finger. 

“I found you.”

Kasi popped up with a grin on her face. “You found me!”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She began climbing over the baskets, ignoring his offered hand to help. “How? This is my best hiding spot. No one ever finds me here.”

“Change detection imaging,” he replied, pointing to his helmet. “And tracking is a basic skill that is part of every  _ Mando’ade bajur.” _

Kasi paused on top of one of the barrels, frowning up at him. “What?”

“You didn’t choose a good hiding place,” he tried instead, and her confused look turned incredulous.

“Nuh-uh,” she countered, and with enough confidence that it was almost persuasive. She hopped back to the ground and frowned at him. “I always win hide-and-seek.”

“Except now.”

She scoffed to inform him this argument was over and that she’d clearly won. He followed her back towards the longhall, where all the other children he’d found were gathering.

“Why do you keep playing with us?” Kasi asked him, shielding her eyes to squint up at his visor. “You never did before.”

“I’m making sure you’re keeping a good eye on the kid,” he told her calmly. “We’ll be leaving soon. I need to know he’ll be looked after.”

“He will,” she said automatically. “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. A week, maybe.” The biggest thing that would eat up time would be travel—the scrapping yard was out of system and at least a day’s travel in hyperdrive, and before they jumped he needed to refuel. 

“That’s a long time,” Kasi mused. She was stomping her feet as she walked, the mud around the banks squelching beneath her sandals. “Aren’t you just selling scrap?”

“It’s far away. It’ll take some time to travel to.”

“Have you been there before?”

Her barrage of questioning continued as they entered the hall, and he let out a soft, relieved breath at seeing the kid sat at the table. It wasn’t a surprise that he was there, but he was relieved nonetheless.

He never planned on having a formal routine. Even his training in the Fighting Corps as a child had been irregular and spontaneous—the lack of structure had been a lesson unto itself, that he must always be ready, always be alert. But the rhythmic demands of the village necessitated that he keep a schedule, and he was helpless to do anything but follow it.

More specifically, it was the demands of the village  _ children _ that enforced a monotony on his free time. 

“Are those real bones?” Balif asked him another afternoon, standing over his shoulder and blocking the sunlight from the hall window. He was pointing at the jacks in Din’s hand, frowning at their irregular shape.

“Yes.” He dropped them onto the small leather mat he’d placed on the table in front of them, then caught them in the air when they bounced. “You try to catch as many as you can.”

Turen leaned across the table and grabbed for his closed hand. He opened it, palm up, to hold out the six jacks. The boy picked one up and examined it. 

“What animal is it from?”

He crooked a finger from his free hand, the material of his glove straining against a knuckle. “Knuckle joints from a plateau goat on Nevarro,” he explained. “But that has no bearing on the rules—”

“Why is it so shiny?”

“They’ve been lacquered. As I was saying—”

“What does lacquered mean?”

They reminded him a lot of the covert’s foundlings. Far less disciplined and easier to distract, but children were children. And most importantly, they had taken his rules to heart—the kid was always in someone’s arms, or sitting safely on a bench during meal time, or playing with a whole group of children out in the fields. They kept him away from the ponds as best they could, and as far as he could tell, the kid was okay with that. 

When he wasn’t being led around by the nose to re-explain the rules of dice or knucklebones, or being pestered to show the children how far he could shoot stream-fire out of his vambrace, he helped with preparations. His back continued to not be a problem, and for no reason he could discern. But it also meant he could haul around scrap, and no one complained about the extra set of hands, least of all Cara.

And when he was free from either of those obligations, Winta begged him for lessons.

“Soo-coo-ey-gare,” she would greet him, always ready with her holster, always smiling like she was still trying to win him over.

_ “Su cuy'gar,”  _ he would reply before handing her the sidearm. 

She was a good shot—impressively so for a girl her age, and one without any prior training. She missed as many marks as she hit, but the fact that she hit any was noteworthy. 

“I wanna shoot like you,” she told him during one of their lessons, the gun in her holster. She clumsily slung it out and pointed it at a tree with one hand, her face scrunched in concentration.

“Two hands,” he reminded her. “No hip-firing.”

“Why?”

“It’s dangerous, and you’re too young.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Pfft, no I’m not.” She re-holstered the weapon, standing stock-still for a moment, before whipping it back out again, and this time she pulled the trigger. The shot missed the tree and she stumbled back, clutching her shoulder in pain as the gun dropped to the ground. 

He sighed. Winta looked up at him with the petulant look of a child being proven wrong.

“Two hands,” he repeated tiredly. “Pick it up.”

But by far, his favourite part of the day were the evenings, and not only because that was when the day began to cool. He would take his meal to the barn to eat, sometimes alone, sometimes with Omera, facing in opposite directions and mumbling their conversations into the floor. She always had something to talk to him about, a skill he found endlessly impressive, but somehow they always, eventually, came back to the children—Winta and the kid.

“No cough,” she said to him one night. He could hear her poking her food around her plate with a fork. “No fever. He’s healing well.”

“He’s drinking liquids again,” he replied, nodding. The space between them was negligible, and now he could feel her shoulder brush his back when she turned slightly to speak. 

“And he’s not getting into any trouble,” she said amusedly. 

He huffed out a laugh. “No more than usual. Can’t say the same for your daughter, though.”

Her laughter was much louder than his own, and it filled the barn. “She told me you taught her a swear word.”

“It was a trade deal,” he explained, and smiled when she laughed again. He scraped what was left off his plate and took a moment to eat. “To stop her from trying to shoot one-handed.”

“What was it?”

“Hm?”

She turned her head, though not enough to look at him. Her hair brushed the back of his neck and a shudder ran down the length of his spine.

“The word that you taught her,” she said. “What does it mean?”

“Oh.” He felt the tips of his ears heat as he set down his plate.  _ “shabuir. _ It means… asshole, jerk, like that.”

“Wow.”

“There’s worse ones,” he muttered, picking at a splinter in the floorboards with an idle finger. “I won’t teach her any others, I promise.”

He felt her hand slide overtop his, braced on the floor beside them, and she leaned into his back. He closed his eyes. Their heads weren’t touching, and he was glad for it that small mercy.

“I’m not upset,” she whispered. It still sounded like she was smiling. “Just as long as you tell me the worst one.”

His shoulders shook as he held down laughter. “You trading something?”

“Hmmm.” Her hair whispered against the floor as she nodded her head back and forth, deciding what to bargain with. “A kiss, perhaps.”

He wanted to turn and look at her, so he looked to the floor instead. “Omera, I can’t—” 

“Not like that.” She pulled his hand up from the floor. He bent his arm behind him to accommodate her, and felt her mouth press against the tips of his fingers. Her lips were a lot softer than her hands, and he let out a breath when he realised he’d been holding it in.

“Press them to your mouth,” she said, so quietly he barely heard it above his own heartbeat. Her breath whispered across his skin before she gave him back his hand, her own lingering on it like she was giving him something delicate to hold. 

He held it out in front of him, looking at it as if for the first time. The skin was scarred and rough, paled from the lack of sunlight. His fingertips still felt warm from her lips, and carefully he brought them to his face, brushing them gently against his own mouth.

He relaxed into her and closed his eyes, shuddering again.  _ “Hut’uun,”  _ he breathed after a moment. “It means coward.”

* * *

Today she did not have to find the Mandalorian and ask him for a lesson—right after breakfast he found her in the fields, her gun in his hand, his own holstered by his side.

_ “Olarom,”  _ she called as he approached, and his helmet tipped down.

“ _ Verd’ika,”  _ he replied, and she beamed because he hadn’t corrected her, which meant she’d said it right this time.

Winta sprung up from the reedgrass, dropping the knot she’d been weaving with it. He passed her the sidearm without a word, and she worked through inspecting it—safety, ammunition, the slide—until it was ready to fire. 

“Can we shoot something else besides trees?” she asked him, seeing him turn away from her. She moved to follow along until he put a hand out to stop her.

“Yes,” he said, surprising her, and walked about a dozen more paces away from her. Then he turned and faced her, his stance wide and his shoulders back. “You’re going to shoot me.”

She was so taken aback by his words that she nearly dropped the gun. Winta shoved it into her holster and stared at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

“Today’s lesson,” he replied, clarifying nothing. As always. “I’m the target.”

“You said never to point this—” she gestured at her thigh. “At anyone unless I’m going to kill them.”

“You need to know what it feels like to shoot somebody.” He tapped his knuckles against his breastplate, making a faint, drumming  _ ping  _ sound. “I’ll be protected by the beskar.”

“What if I miss?” she asked. “And hit your arm? Or shoulder? Or leg? Or—”

“I’ll cook in my suit,” he replied calmly. “So don’t miss.”

“No.” She crosses her arms and held her head up. “I’m not going to.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” he told her, and she felt her tummy go cold with dread at the reminder. “I need to know that you can handle yourself.”

“Why?” she asked immediately. “Is something bad going to happen?”

“You’re the one who wanted to be prepared,” he replied—once again, not answering her question. “I’m preparing you.”

Winta looked out at the village. No one was paying attention to them, all occupied with the harvest, or with packing the scrap into the Mandalorian’s ship. And the kids were playing with Fuzzy, gently kicking a ball to him until he shoved it back.

She took a deep breath and grabbed the gun, holding it in two hands. It had always been heavy, but now it felt impossibly large and wicked.

“Winta,” the Mandalorian called, and she looked up. “I’ll be fine. And so will you. Now widen your stance.”

She felt herself nod and braced her feet properly on the ground, almost automatically. She brought the gun up to eye level, suppressing the now-instinctive flinch to prevent sweeping the sights over someone’s body. She lined up the sights where the Mandalorian was pointing on his body—the tiny honeycomb symbol in the middle of his breastplate.

“About there,” he told her, letting his hand drop to his side. “It’s going to be loud—louder than the tree. And at this range, I’ll be going down when you hit me, so don’t panic when I fall over.”

“Is it going to hurt you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said calmly. “I’ll get over it. Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Winta—”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she replied, and the gun dipped in her hands.

“That’s a good impulse,” he said dryly. “But do it anyway.”

She lined it up again and squared her shoulders. He’d braced himself, waiting for her to get ready. When she nodded to him, his shoulders shifted forward to shift his centre of mass into where she’d be shooting.

“Okay. I’m gonna do it,” she announced, and his helmet dipped. She pulled the trigger.

He was right—it was a lot louder this time. The sound of screeching steel filled the air, along with a considerable amount of sparks as the blaster hit him squarely in the chest. He went down hard, landing flat on his back like he said he would. For a moment she stared at him in horror because he wasn’t moving, and then she was sprinting over to him, sliding in the grass until she was by his side and her hands were on his arm.

“Hey!” she yelled, shaking him. He was alive, but his movements were dazed and slow. “Hey! Get up!”

After a moment he drew in a painful-sounding breath and coughed, and one of his hands grabbed her shoulder. His helmet rolled on the ground as his visor pointed in her direction, his breathing laboured.

Tears filled her eyes as she shook him again, making sure he didn’t go still. The spot on his breastplate where she shot was smouldering faintly, and the steel was smeared with carbon. She hadn’t hit the honeycomb—the blaster shot had hit a few inches to the right, but it was difficult to tell if there were any dents or damage beneath the spray of charcoal.

“How’d—” He paused to cough and draw in breath. His voice was strangled and high, and panic ripped through her at how strained he sounded. “How’d that feel?” 

“What?” She was so surprised by the ridiculous question it took her a minute to process what he’d asked her. “It felt horrible! That was awful!”

He groaned and sat up, hunching forward and hanging his head low as he caught his breath. Winta watched him, wiping at her face. She was shaking so badly her vision jiggled, and the Mandalorian was just a blurry smear.

“Good,” he whispered, still sucking in breath. “It should always feel awful to sh—shoot somebody.”

She dove forward, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face to the soft part between his pauldron and breastplate. He stiffened in astonishment for a moment before a hand came up and pressed into her back, and she sniffled hard.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to push down the tremor in her voice.

“You did well, _verd'ika,"_ he said back, and it sounded like there was a tremor in his voice, too. “And you are ready.”


	11. Event Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s no going back now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so floored by the response to this fic and I KNOW I say this every chap but I mean it. I really had not planned for this to be a huge deal and a large part of why it’s turned into such a big project is because of all your wonderful feedback. So thank you 🥺
> 
> Also: heads up that there is some mild allusions to sexual assault towards the end of the chapter, and it’s going to be dealt with more in-depth in later chapters. I’ll post more warnings when they become relevant.
> 
> One last note: I use [mandoa.org](http://mandoa.org/) for most translations, and if you haven’t used it I highly recommend checking it out!

Winta was the one to wake her in the morning, clinging to her so fiercely that it was an effort to breathe. “Mama.” 

Omera wrapped her arm around her daughter, pressing a sleepy kiss to the top of her head. “My love,” she whispered, opening her eyes to their hut being lit by the encroaching dawn. She’d slept with her in the night, huddling close on Omera’s thin cot despite the heat and despite the fact that Winta was far too old to be crawling into her bed anymore.

“I don’t want you to go,” Winta said into her chest, and she could feel a wet patch on her gown from the girl’s tears.

If it was possible, Omera hugged her closer, pulling the blankets up until they were completely hidden underneath them. In that warm darkness, Winta allowed herself to look up at her, sniffling.

“It’s only for a little while,” she promised her softly, smoothing the hair from her face. “I’ll be safe.”

“How long?”

“A week, I think,” she told her for the dozenth time, brushing a finger over her nose. Winta did not smile. “Only seven sleeps. Maybe a few more.”

She shook her head and pressed her face back into Omera’s chest. Two tiny fists wrapped around her sleeping gown, trying to fuse them both together. “One sleep is too many,” Winta whispered.

“It is,” she said with a sigh, and felt Winta’s head move with surprise at the admission. “But it’s what I must do.”

Winta sniffled again, and she cupped her head with a smile. “Do you remember,” Omera mused softly, “we would do this when you were little, whenever you had nightmares.”

“Bedfort,” Winta whispered back, her breath coming out shakily. 

Omera laughed. “Yes,” she murmured. “Now go back to sleep, baby. It’s not time yet.”

“You’ll wake me up before you leave?”

“Of course,” she said fiercely, squeezing her tight. “Of course I will.”

She rocked them both until Winta fell back asleep. Omera kept the blanket overtop them, watching the sun rise between each stitch of fabric. For now there was nothing else in the world but her and Winta beneath the blanket, and the illusion was as much for her sake as it was for her daughter’s.

* * *

He didn’t dress right away. The grass was cool against his back, the dew mixing with the beads of spring water still clinging to his skin. 

Beside him was movement; the kid was still groggy, and he had been adamant about staying swaddled in his blanket on the way here. Din circled his arm around the bundle, and looked over to find himself being stared at with two large, droopy eyes. 

“I know,” he whispered. The kid rummaged out one of his hands from the blanket to settle it against Din’s, and he closed his eyes. 

“I’ll be gone for a bit,” he continued, suppressing a shiver at the light breeze that passed over from the surface of the spring. “Winta and the others will take care of you.”

The kid cooed, a low, soft sound that was more of a hum than actual noise. It felt like he understood—if not the actual words, then the intent behind them. When he’d removed his armour and slipped into the spring it had been with more ceremony than usual, and maybe the kid was picking up on that. Or maybe he’d felt the gravity with which he’d been given one more stone from the spring.

It wasn’t forever. It was hardly a long time at all.

His free hand picked at the grass beneath him, silky and smooth against his bare fingers. Laying flat on his back without pain was a luxury unto itself, but he’d still kept close to the bank when he’d been in the spring. He hadn’t come here to enjoy himself. The kid wouldn’t understand a simple spoken goodbye, but maybe he understood this.

“You get it?” he whispered, flexing his arm to nudge the kid. “I’m leaving. You can’t cry at Winta for a whole week.”

More coos, gentle and sweet, filled the air. It wasn’t confirmation, but it was enough. It had to be.

* * *

She was trying to be patient. She really was.

“And this,” Djarin explained, picking up a receiver and holding it out to her. “Is the remote trigger for the charges. You click down both pads on either side and hold for five seconds.”

“I know how bombs work,” Cara replied in a bored voice, watching him pace around the barn. 

He continued to speak as if he hadn’t heard her. “I cleared all the FOVs for the sentries this morning, so you have an unobstructed audio-visual feed around the village’s perimeter. They’re set to random interval movement patterns to minimise timed blind-spots, but they have a four-second transmission delay, so—”

“I have a question,” she interrupted, and he stopped his pacing to look at her. 

“About the sentry set-up?”

“You said you trusted me,” she said, ignoring him.

“That isn’t a question.”

“You’re right, it isn’t.” She stood up from the table and slapped him on the back, because she could finally do that again. It felt good. “I got this. I ran special ops, remember?”

He looked down at the sentry console on the table. An array of blips filled the screen, numerous enough to trace an outline around the village. It only displayed a rudimentary surface elevation model of the village and surrounding forest, but she was so familiar with the terrain by now that it was almost unnecessary context.

“They’ll be safe,” she assured him, and he looked up to meet her eyes. “I promise.”

“I know. I know,” he repeated with a sigh. 

“So relax,” she insisted, nudging his shoulder with a fist. 

“I will once we’re in the air.” He glanced over at his weapons lockers. “I gave out a few sidearms to the villagers. Idane and Sora are both decent shots.”

She raised a brow. “Oh, you didn’t arm Winta?” 

“I’m giving her gun to you,” he said seriously, and reached behind him to retrieve it from his belt. He offered the tiny blaster to her and she took it with a slight smile. “Practice with her, if you like, but don’t let her keep it, no matter how much she asks.”

“Roger that,” she replied, tucking it in her own belt.

They stood in the barn in silence, listening to the rafters creak and the sounds of the village outside. Even the air hung differently, or maybe it was just her imagination. 

“I just—” Djarin stopped himself and shook his head. “If things get bad, I need you to keep the kid and Winta safe. Get to the common house in the town and wait for us there if—”

“They won’t get bad,” she cut him off, and with enough force that his helmet dipped. “And I’ll hold the line either way.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” His hands braced against his hips as he considered her. “No heroics, no—”

“Do you hear yourself?” She laughed. “You’ll be gone a week, and you’re selling scrap to an in-law. I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing the past two weeks. Everything will be fine.” When he didn’t respond to that, she ducked her head to catch his gaze. “Okay?”

“Alright,” he said, nodding. “Okay.”

“Good. Now grab your crap and get out of my way.” 

He surprised her with a chuckle before slinging his pack over his shoulder and ducking out of the barn. She closed his stupid sentry monitor and followed after him, her hand immediately coming up to shield her eyes from the sun. It was already blisteringly hot outside and it was barely noon.

The place to be today was right outside his ship. Most of the village was gathered around it, helping to pack everything into the cargo bay and lingering around to say extended goodbyes. The kids were gathered near the rear gangplank, peering inside but not daring to go in. She saw Winta among them, holding the kid and looking unusually serious, and Cara felt herself sober. Djarin’s micromanaging and worrying might be insufferable, but at least he had control over what was happening. Winta was just going to watch a ship fly away with her mother in it and wonder for the next week if she’ll come back.

As Djarin walked up the ramp, ignoring the kids’ requests to follow, Cara went to Winta and knelt in front of her. The girl stared back, her brow knotted in a permanent frown.

“You doing okay?” she asked her.

Winta hugged the kid more tightly in her arms. “No.”

“Your mom’s gonna be alright,” she told her with a slight smile. “The Mandalorian is a good fighter. He’ll keep her safe.”

“Are they going to get into fights?” Winta asked, and Cara realised she’d said the complete wrong thing. Her experience with kids was limited to a few retrieval drops she’d done on razed planets or liberated slave camps. Most of them had been too traumatised to say more than a few words at most, and none of them could be offered a reassurance that they’d see their family again. 

Cara took a deep breath. “No, they won’t. In fact, I made sure Djarin went so I wouldn’t get bored. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a scrapyard,” she continued, and smiled when Winta shook her head. “But they’re stinky and dull places.”

Winta shrugged her assurances off and let out a huff of breath. “I guess.”

“No guessing about it. They’ll be okay. And,” she added, grabbing the gun from her belt and holding it out to Winta. “We can train after they leave. I’ll let you shoot more interesting stuff than trees, too.”

The girl’s eyes brightened at that, though the worry was still plain on her face. Cara smiled, and Winta’s mouth curled up in response. “Okay,” she whispered, and ducked away with an annoyed groan when Cara tousled her hair.

* * *

“This is… a lot,” Omera said beside him. The only way to move around in his cargo bay was to sidle along the walls, and both of them were pressed up near the ladder as they appraised the seemingly endless heaps of scrap tied up in neat bundles shoved into the bay.

“We’ll sleep in the cockpit,” he replied, glancing up. “There’s enough room up there.”

“As long as we can get off the ground,” she muttered.

He looked back down at her. “Everything ready?”

She blew out a breath and smiled. “Yeah. I’ve got my gear stowed, the scrap’s all accounted for, I’ve left instructions with Idane for Winta… I’m good to go.”

It also hadn’t escaped his notice that she was no longer wearing a frock and gown. Her hair was tied up in a large bun at the back of her head, and she was wearing something that looked like a grey mechanic’s jumper, or even a stripped down pilot suit. It didn’t offer much in the way of formal protection, but it would be inconspicuous in a scrapping depot, and maybe that was better than armour.

“Let’s go say our goodbyes then,” he replied. 

She nodded and nudged his arm for him to sidle back out towards the ramp. She followed behind him, a guiding hand on his wrist that was entirely unnecessary but nonetheless welcome. 

When he shoved out onto the gangplank, he walked down to find a sea of people waiting for them. Omera was swept into a hug by the nearest villager, and he walked towards Cara, spotting her—surprisingly—amongst the children.

Presumably to distract them from trying to enter his ship, she was holding her arms out and letting the kids hang off of them, who were squealing and giggling. Two others were wrapped around her legs, standing on her boots, challenging her to move.

“You all weigh nothing,” she proclaimed, dragging her feet and rocking her arms. More giggling followed. “You’re like twigs!”

The only one not angling to hang off her was Winta, watching off to the side with a grim look on her face. She had the kid in her hands, who seemed content enough to be held by her despite the heat. He detoured, going to Winta instead, who looked up at him with dark, forlorn eyes.

“We’re about to leave,” he told her, kneeling down to her level. Her chin scrunched up, and she said nothing.

He sighed and ducked his head, trying to find something more to say. They’d gone through it all several times before—they’d be back in a week, give or take a few days, and they were only visiting a scrapyard. He’d assured her how not-dangerous it was, how safe they’d be, how easy a job this was going to be for the both of them, how her mother would—

He felt two thin arms wrap around his neck. In his periphery he saw the kid by his boot, watching them embrace.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said into his shoulder, sniffling hard. He wrapped an arm around her.

“It’ll be okay,” he said back, closing his eyes. “We’ll be safe.”

“I know,” she said. “You said you would. But I still don’t want you to go.”

He squeezed her hard. His throat tightened, almost to the point that breathing was difficult, and he grabbed her arms to pull her back, to make her look him in the face so she knew that he was making more than just a promise. 

“We will come back,” he whispered. Anything louder was impossible. “Your mother and I. We will come back, I swear to you.”

She nodded her head, her breath coming out in trembling waves, and he pressed his helmet to her head and took a breath himself. He needed to hear her tell him that she understood. “I swear,” he repeated, and felt her tiny hands come up and press against the sides of his helmet.

“Okay,” she whispered.

He drew in another breath and nodded, finally able to break away from her. But he didn’t let go; he hoisted her up in his arms, scooping the kid up along with her, and turned to find Cara watching them, still swarmed with kids, still smiling. 

He walked over to her, and her smile only widened when they got close. “You’ll have your hands full,” he said, nodding to the kids hanging off her.

“You better bring me back something good for all of this,” she replied, setting the kids on her arms down. “Just hold on,” she told them, prying the rest off, and then grabbed him in a hug when she was free. His own hands were full of both Winta and the kid, so he could do no more than lean into her, but Winta made up for it by patting Cara on the back.

“My undying gratitude,” he replied when she pulled away, and her eyes rolled skyward.

“I like my gratitude in spendable form, thank you.” She gave the kid’s ear a swipe of her fingers and grinned at Winta. “Come on guys. He’s gotta go.”

“Just a moment,” he said to Cara, setting Winta down. She looked up at him. “Your mother’s waiting over there,” he told her, nodding his head to the crowd of villagers. Winta nodded and raced off, straight into the arms of Omera, and he looked down at the kid. 

He looked as he always did. Calm, content, curious, his eyes bright and his ears twitching at the slightest sound. He’d said his proper goodbye to the kid this morning, away from prying eyes and ears, but now he hesitated again. The ceremony of farewells was one he detested, and yet he couldn’t help himself give one more quiet, whispered  _ goodbye,  _ holding him close for a moment before passing him to Cara.

“Be good,” he said, pointing a warning finger at the kid, and then looked up to Cara. “Thank you.”

“Don’t sweat it,” she replied, smiling. 

With that he turned back to watch Omera kiss her daughter’s head and promise to come back soon and hold back the tears that Winta did not bother hiding. He felt his throat tighten again and went to the ramp, offering the rest of the village only a parting nod before he ducked inside. 

Squeezing around the scrap, he made it to the ladder and climbed up into the blessed silence of the cockpit. Everyone was too close to start up the engines, so he ran through routine diagnostics to confirm the  _ Crest  _ was still, in fact, space worthy. It was an unnecessary formality, but it also gave him something to do, and the familiar routine of going through the motions calmed his nerves. 

He also confirmed their flight vectors. They’d have to make a bit of a detour in order to stop at a refuelling station—and one that didn’t require he provide any identification or mind being paid out in cash—before heading to the scrapping depot. It would add at least an hour to their travel time, and that was if the refuel lanes weren’t busy. 

He heard the ladder rattle as Omera climbed up, and a moment later she was standing behind his chair, a hand braced on the headrest.

“Looking good?” she asked.

“We’re clear to leave,” he replied. “Just need to pressure seal the ship and get everyone away from the engines.” He flipped on the short range comm link to Cara and clicked it a few times to give her three bursts of static, then looked out the window. Omera leaned over his shoulder to watch as well, distracting him for a moment before he saw Cara wave at the crowd of villagers to clear the landing zone. 

“You should buckle in,” he told her. He couldn’t turn his head because hers was right next to his helmet, but he saw her nod in his periphery and duck away to sit down behind him. 

Once Cara gave him the all-clear, he fired up both engines and keyed the cargo bay door closed. Far out afield waited the village, watching as the  _ Razor Crest _ prepared for ascent. He spotted Winta easily, still holding the kid, still watching with a mournful knot in her brow. 

“Can she see us in here?” Omera asked behind him, craning forward to look out into the village.

“No,” he replied. “Windows are polarised.”

There was no point in waving. She still did, though, and the nod of his helmet wasn’t entirely accidental. 

“They’ll be fine,” he assured her as the landing struts retracted and they began to lift off the ground.

“I know,” she whispered, sitting back in her seat with a sigh. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I know.”

* * *

He’d continually slumped further and further into his seat while they’d waited, and now he had to push himself back up to keep from sliding onto the deck.

Din glared out at the refuelling lanes and sighed for the dozenth time. They’d been here for twenty minutes and he was already past the point of worrying about being recognised.

“I forgot how boring being a fugitive was,” Omera mused, and he turned in his chair to see her leaning her head on a fist, similarly slouched over.

He tilted his head. “You forgot?” 

She smiled. “Most of it is just waiting, sitting around, trying not to drive yourself mad.”

“Right,” he agreed slowly. She must have heard the apprehension in his voice, because her smile brightened into a laugh.

“It’s a long story,” she replied. “And mostly boring. Not nearly as interesting as yours.”

He spread his hands. “We’ve got time to kill.”

“A lot of time.” She sighed and shifted in her seat, giving him a coy grin. “I can’t give it all away now.”

He was about to respond when he heard a buzz from the dashboard. He swivelled the seat around to look down at the screen.

“Great,” he muttered, tapping the dash. “We’ve been bumped up to thirty-ninth place.” 

He knew it would be a pain in the ass, but the waiting still gnawed at him. Outer Rim refuel centres were endlessly busy with people who didn’t want to pay New Republic fuel taxes or be asked questions about what they were hauling. Neither of those were of particular concern to him at the moment, but the risk of being ID’d was too great to go elsewhere.

So they waited.

“Perhaps I should buy one of these stations and live out here,” Omera said, propping her feet up on the edge of the dashboard. Her boots were clean, so he didn’t complain. “You wouldn’t hurt for money out here.”

“Long as you can stomach the occasional shoot-out,” he replied, nudging the ship along as the line moved up several metres. “Or slavers hitting the lines when they’re busy.”

Omera brushed those off with a dismissive  _ pfft.  _ “A negligible occupational hazard for the return.”

“If they don’t hit any of the fuel reserves,” he said, leaning forward in his seat to look out the window. Massive defence guns were mounted along the station’s outer hull, sweeping the lines of ships as a frequent reminder for everyone to keep their hands to themselves. “I’ll need you to do me a favour.”

“Which is?”

“Answer the door when they come knocking,” he told her, turning back around to look at Omera. “They’ll come by the moment we dock. I told them I was paying in person, but….”

“You aren’t exactly a forgettable face,” she surmised, and he nodded. “Right.”

“And take the rifle,” he added, nodding to the one he’d given her before they left. It was leaning on the wall beside her.

“Fugitive, remember?” She raised a brow. “I get it.”

“Good.”

It was another hour before they finally slid into a pressurised refuel lane. He heard the tank cap pop as the automatic fuel nozzle was guided into the ship. Before it was fully clamped on, they were hailed over comms for payment, and he looked over at Omera.

“Ready?”

She stood up from her seat and slung the rifle across her shoulders. That was confirmation enough, so he passed her over a pouch of coin. 

Her brow cocked at the weight. “This is a lot.”

“It’ll get us there and back,” he replied. “Along with a little extra so their cameras forget what my ship looks like.”

She nodded. “I’ll let them know.” At that, she ducked towards the ladder, pressing the rifle against her ribs. When she slid down, he got up from his seat and pulled out his blaster, looking down into the cargo bay and watching her sidle towards the starboard ramp. 

He heard the hatch hiss open, and leaned forward enough so that he could just barely see her around the heaps of scrap. He couldn’t see who had come to collect payment, and they murmured something that wasn’t in Basic—a trade dialect he was only passingly familiar with. 

Silence for a moment. He strained to listen, braced forward and ready to jump down into the cargo bay. It was rare for refuel attendants to start a fight, especially when they hadn’t been paid yet, but if the past several weeks were any indication, those hard-and-fast rules of engagement weren’t always reliable tells.

Then Omera responded, and his worry dissolved into astonishment when she replied with a few short words in the same language. After that, he heard the faint clink of a coin pouch being exchanged and a final quick word from the attendant. Boots clattered down the ramp as the attendant walked away, and a moment later he heard the hiss of the ramp folding back up. The nozzle clamped to the ship began to pump fuel with a gurgling hum.

He watched Omera climb back up into the cockpit, and offered her a hand when she reached the top rung. She took it and pulled herself onto the deck, but when he didn’t let go, she turned to look at him.

“You speak more than Basic?” 

She smiled. “Not really. I know bits and pieces from a few different dialects, but—” She shrugged and glanced down at the ladder, not bothering to finish her thought. “Anyway, they took payment without issue.”

He let go of her hand and nodded. She went back to her seat, setting the rifle down beside her, and he went back to his own chair. She was quiet for the rest of the refuel, and so was he.

* * *

He didn’t fully relax until they had jumped to hyperspace, their course charted to what Omera had called the Erudital Scrapping Depot. Apparently her sister had a sense of humour. 

She had arranged bedding on the floor in between the three seats in the cabin while he’d confirmed their flight vector. It was a tight fit, but there was enough room for the both of them to lie down. He was just grateful he didn’t have to sleep in his chair and risk reinjuring his back.

Omera sat in the middle of the cabin now, combing out her hair with a shelled brush that looked like it had come from someplace other than Sorgan. He watched her quietly, transfixed by the repetitive movement of her hand and the soft sound of long hair being brushed out. The long, natural wave was disrupted by the more tightly coiled springs caused from her braids, which she’d also brushed out. It looked even longer now that it was completely down; the edges brushed the bedding with room to spare, and the smell of soap released from unwoven braids filled the cockpit.

“I haven’t seen Ulan in many years,” she told him, and he sat up straighter like he hadn’t been staring. “Winta was just a baby. I’m not sure how she’ll react seeing me again.”

“As long as we can trust her.” He began unbuckling his bandolier and belt, conscious of the fact that she likely wouldn’t want to sleep next to someone in full bounty hunting gear. “You get along well with your sister?”

“Sister-in-law,” she replied. “Or late, I should say. I’m not sure what she is now.” Omera blew out a breath. “But for the most part, yes. She wasn’t as interested in keeping in touch when my husband was killed, but there’s no bad blood there.”

He absorbed that with a silent nod. “You never mentioned he was killed.”

“Didn’t I?” she asked absently, frowning down at a knot in her hair but saying nothing more, and he wasn’t about to prod. 

Din continued to remove anything that wasn’t necessary—pauldrons, vambraces, his cuirass, holster, and even his boots, which he stowed beneath the ship’s dashboard. Omera had done the same, tucking her shoes to the side and unzipping the top half of her jumper in favour of a simple undershirt. Her shoulders and arms were a lighter tone than her face and hands, kept hidden from the harsh heat of Sorgan’s sun. The effect it had was that her skin was an elegant gradient of russet and ochre hues that he tried not to linger on.

“Sixteen hours,” he announced, giving himself an excuse to turn away and read the travel estimate off the display. “Give or take. We should sleep. It’ll be hard work hauling all of that scrap out.”

“I’m sure Ulan has droids for—right,” she interrupted herself, seeing his look. “Okay, fine. No droids.”

He nodded gratefully and she pulled her pack towards her, tucking the brush inside. He stood up from his chair, pulling off his gloves and tossing them into the pile before flicking off the overhead lights and repolarising the windows. The emergency red bulbs winked on, and in the dim light he saw her settle back against the bedding. 

Omera looked up at the ceiling. “You aren’t keeping those on, right?”

“No.” He flicked those off as well, and felt his way to the middle of the cabin, finding the edge of the bedding through his thick sock. He laid down beside her, giving her the blanket in favour of his cloak to wrap himself up in.

It was utterly black inside the cockpit, the only light coming from the very faint glow of the dashboard. He couldn’t see Omera beside him, or even his own hand, but he could certainly feel the warmth radiating off of her. If he twitched his fingers he’d probably touch her, so he settled them overtop his stomach instead.

“Is that comfortable?” she asked, and he heard the faint rustle of her hair as she turned to him. “Sleeping with your helmet on?”

“I’m used to it.”

She hummed, the noise low in her throat. “You can take it off,” she murmured. She didn’t sound tired, but her voice had gone soft. “I couldn’t look at you even if I wanted to.”

He nodded. She was right, and he’d already been through this with her at the springs. That day felt like it had happened in another age, not two weeks ago. 

Din sat up and leaned on his knees, watching the darkness in front of him. It was loud inside his helmet; he could hear his own heartbeat, hear his breath spread across the inside of his visor. 

“You asked earlier,” he heard Omera whisper, and he turned despite not being able to see her. “About my husband.”

He didn’t answer right away. “I won’t pry,” he said finally.

“But you’re curious.” It wasn’t a question.

He didn’t respond to that immediately either. His hands went up to his helmet, and the air hissed softly as the chin guard detached from the rest of his suit. He set it carefully beside him before lying back down, and let out a long, slow breath. 

“You miss him,” he told her. “I can hear it in your voice when you talk about him.”

“I do,” she conceded, the melancholy in her words even more naked in the dark. “He was a good man.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s okay,” she cut him off, but she didn’t sound angry. “I brought it up.”

She was silent for a minute and so was he. It was unnecessary to see her face; he was so familiar by now with watching her work through her thoughts that he knew that’s what she was doing. She never spoke without reason.

“Have you heard about the Imperial labour camps the Empire ran during the war?” she finally asked.

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“I met him in one,” she continued, her voice barely a whisper. He heard her shift on the bedding. “I was studying medicine before they took me to the camp. They assigned you work based on your skill set, and I was placed in the infirmary.” She paused again. “They only let us tend to workers with specialised training—general labourers were just replaced when they were too badly injured to work. Rishan was a hydrological engineer, so he worked on the water infrastructure in the camp. It was a dangerous job, so I’d see him fairly often.” Omera laughed faintly, though it was more of an amused huff of breath. “He used to tell me he hurt himself on purpose sometimes so he could come visit me.”

Din closed his eyes and waited for her to continue. He couldn’t help but be entranced by the gentle sound of her voice, despite the subject matter. She was so close he could hear her pause to draw breath before speaking again. 

“When the rebels came and liberated the camp, we stole a ship and flew off,” she continued. “We went to Ulan.”

“You didn’t go with the Alliance?”

“And get tossed into emergency block housing?” He heard her shoulders shrug against the blanket. “It probably would have been less chaotic, looking back now, but I don’t regret running. We went into scrapping to earn money, which mostly meant getting hired on large transports and jumping to razed planets. I loved it,” she said with a sigh. “Moving all the time, meeting new people every day. We did it for years, until I was pregnant with Winta.”

When she paused this time she didn’t speak again for a while. He struggled to find something to say, and wondered if she even wanted his input. Even listening to her felt like an intrusion; the ache in her voice was plain.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered. There was nothing else he could say.

She reached for his hand and he offered it openly. Her palm was warm, the callouses worn smooth from farmwork. 

“So that’s why I know how to shoot,” she whispered back, the crack in her voice equal parts humour and sorrow. His own mouth tugged up in sympathy. “But that’s enough sob stories for now.”

“It wasn’t boring,” he replied, and this time she let out a full laugh. “And I told you mine, anyway.”

“I remember.” She ran her thumb along his knuckles and he felt his body go slack against the bedding. “The first day you were in the village. Feels like a long time ago.”

“It does,” he murmured, already struggling to formulate his thoughts enough to reply to her. She made it worse by shifting closer to him, her shoulder bumping with his. 

“I thought you were just a grumpy old man,” she whispered. She must have turned her head, because he could feel her breath on his cheek now. 

“I’m not that old,” he rasped, and when she laughed again he shuddered.

“But you’re grumpy enough to fool otherwise.” 

She shifted again, bringing their interwoven hands up to his chest. Her arm was a solid bar of warmth across his ribs, and she was so close now it would be nothing to lean into her. 

“Din.”

He turned his head. He still couldn’t see her, but he could feel her, and he could easily picture her face, broad and warm, her mouth quirked in a smile. 

“I want to kiss you,” she murmured. The words were soft, but he could feel the supple weight of them in her breath brushing his face. 

He turned on his side to properly face her. She must have felt the heavy beat of his heart against her hand, he thought. There was no hiding from her; not when they were this close. 

She must have mistaken his silence for hesitation, because he felt her nod. “It’s okay,” she whispered after a moment, “if you can’t, or don’t want—”

“I want you to,” he interrupted her, terrified by his own words, exhilarated by them.

She inhaled sharply. “Can I touch your face?”

Omera wouldn’t be able to see him nod, but he couldn’t speak, and she must have sensed the concession anyway, because after a moment her hand retracted from his and went to cup his jaw instead. 

If he’d thought her breath on his face was exquisite, then this was an almost unbearable ache—it was familiar in an instant, a hollow she filled that would be forever empty the moment she stopped touching him. The soft sweep of her fingers along his skin made his whole body curl towards her without a thought, and he had to swallow down the plea for more, for  _ anything _ , but a soft, breathless sound still escaped him, not quite a sob.

His hand had clamped around her arm, completely without his permission, but she leaned into the squeeze of his fingers, and her forehead pressed against his—bare now, the both of them, and it was her turn to gasp at the contact. 

“Can I?” she whispered, a thumb brushing over his lips. 

He shuddered again, hard, unable to speak, only nodding into her finger. It left his face, leaving him aching, before being replaced with her lips.

He pulled her hard against him, his arm going to her back, his breath coming out all at once in a sharp exhale. It must have startled her, because her hand braced itself on his chest and she pulled back for a moment.

“Sorry,” he muttered, following her with a nudge of his nose against her cheek, unable to help the need to keep her close. When she laughed softly he felt lightheaded.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, and then kissed him again, just as soft and warm as the first time. He surprised himself with the groan that clawed its way up his throat. An urgency overtook him, his skin jumping and twitching with a frenzy he’d only ever felt when he was losing a fight. 

But it seemed to overtake her, too; she was pressing herself into him, her leg curling around his, and when she nudged him to lay back on the bedding, she rolled with him, the pressure of her body now impossible to ignore.

Both of her hands cupped his face now, threatening to overwhelm him. Her lips moved across his with an experienced fervour that he couldn’t hope to match, only react to. She kissed him with her entire body, rocking into him in waves. It was too much to bear.

He pushed up on an elbow, careful not to break away from her mouth, until he was sitting up, hoping to gain some control. Omera adjusted by sliding into his lap, her knees braced on either side of his thighs, and he realised he’d only reinforced her position above him. Her hips rocked into his as his hands fell to her waist, grasping for an anchor. It stopped his arms from shaking so badly, but it was still an effort to focus on anything else but her.

Eventually he had to break away for breath and she gasped, her forehead resting on his. Her hands gripped his shoulders now, fisted in the fabric of his bodysuit. The both of them were breathing too harshly to do anything but cling to each other, and the sound of it filled the cabin.

“Sorry,” it was her turn to gasp out. “I went—I went a little overboard.”

“S’okay,” he replied thickly. Despite his hammering heart and shaking hands he felt sluggish, dazed somehow. His brain certainly wasn’t working properly.

“You taste like... honeycomb bread,” she murmured against his cheek, and this close he could feel the grin form on her lips. 

He had no words to describe how she tasted. He didn’t think they existed. It seemed obvious now, that she would taste like something, but it had still been a shock to him. It was like the smell of her skin, but more sweet somehow. Rounder and full.

A hand came up to his chin and he leaned into it. “And how,” she asked breathlessly, “was  _ that?” _

A laugh escaped him between breaths.  _ “Mar'eyce.” _

Her mouth met his again, a quick press of the lips that nonetheless still made him tremble from the warmth of it. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know how to describe it,” he replied. His hand drifted up from her waist, coming to settle into her thick hair. It was so soft it felt like he was touching the surface of a lake. 

“The kiss or the word?” she asked, pressing kisses along his jaw and making it incredibly difficult to respond.

“Both,” he murmured, his other arm encircling her waist, pulling her flush against him. “You’re so warm,” he breathed, closing his eyes.

A finger crooked around the collar of his bodysuit, exposing his throat. She pressed her lips to his ragged pulse, bringing out another strangled groan from him. His chin tilted up as if on instinct, without the need for thought, and she rolled her hips again. This wasn’t like the barn; her full weight was on him now, with no beskar to separate them, and she was taking full advantage of that. 

His throat flared with goosebumps as she continued to trail her mouth along his neck. His hand in her hair felt like a guide now, following the movements of somebody who knew what they were doing. He was helpless to do anything but arch his body into her, and he knew he was on the verge of making a very, very dangerous decision.

“You shaved recently,” she observed, the words whispered into his throat. Her index finger brushed along the skin beneath his jaw. 

“Yesterday,” he replied, feeling her fingertip catch on the stubble around his chin. She pulled back up and kissed him on the mouth again, and he melted into her.

* * *

She wasn’t sure how long they kissed. The dark space in his cabin was surely unmoored from the regular flow of time, because the idea that they’d kissed for hours was nearly as absurd as the idea that they’d kissed for only moments.

He was clumsy with her, his movements guided by instinct rather than experience. But he couldn’t hide himself that way—she felt all of him at once, earnest and true. There was a desperate, ragged edge to his body that she couldn’t help but echo with her own mouth, her own hands and hips. She could feel him hard between her legs, straining against his thick bodysuit, and each time she arched into him, it seemed like one of the few weak threads holding him together broke apart.

At some point their kissing became frantic again, her mouth pressing so hard into his she felt their teeth scrape. His hands were broad and warm and she kept reassuring him that the firm grip of his fingers was more than okay, that he could press a lot harder if he wanted to—

Din broke away from her again for breath, his forehead going to the crook of her neck. She wound a hand up in his hair and held him as they both caught their breath again, her chest heaving in time with his. His grip went slack on her hips and he wrapped his arms around her instead. She was so warm by now that sweat dewed at her temples, and she could feel that the curling hairs at the base of neck were slick, too.

“Do you want,” she murmured, pausing for breath, “to stop?”

“No,” he groaned into her neck. “But I should anyway.”

She smiled at that and kissed the side of his neck, which earned her another full body tremor. It made her wonder how he’d react if she could kiss the inside of his thighs as much as she’d kissed the crook of his jaw, and she had to close her eyes to shut out that thought. She needed to calm down, not let her mind wander.

Despite his words, he didn’t try to pull away from her. She slowly rolled left, bringing them down onto the bedding. “On your side,” she murmured, and felt him shift as she pressed up flush behind him. Her nose nudged against his hair, smelling like steel and sweat, and she smiled as she wrapped an arm around his waist. His hand found hers immediately, and it was her turn to breathe out a sigh.

“You’re okay?” she asked, just to be sure, and when he responded she heard the smile in his voice.

“I’m okay,” he replied. “Just wish there was enough room to take a cold shower down in the hold.”

She laughed into his neck and felt him rumble with responding laughter. “I mean,” she whispered, “my offer still stands.”

Her hand crept lower, releasing from his fingers to smooth down his abdomen. The material of his bodysuit was scratchy but pliant, and it would be nothing to slip beneath where his belt normally hung and wrap her fingers around—

His body went rigid. “Stop,” he ordered, his voice cold, his fingers clamping around her wrist in a vice. She froze, the calm blanket of warmth between them suddenly, all at once, receding.

Neither of them spoke. She felt a tremor go through her own body now, but it wasn’t with pleasure. The anger in his voice had been clear and immediate, startling her with its abrupt intensity.

“Din?” she ventured, and he released his hold on her wrist. She immediately retreated, folding it back to her own chest, and his body went slack like a marionette collapsing. When he sighed this time, he sounded a hundred years old. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“You didn’t do anything,” he said, his words coming out strangled. “You didn’t….”

His hand felt back for hers and she offered it willingly. He brought it to his chest again and she pressed closer to him, closing her eyes.

“It’s—” She heard him swallow. “It’s another long story. I’m sorry, I didn’t—it’s not your fault.”

She bit her lip and pressed her face into the back of his neck, squeezing the arm now wrapped around his ribs. “You don’t have to explain.”

He squeezed her hand, a choked breath escaping him. “You’re the only one,” he whispered to her. The thought hung unfinished between them, and it seemed he had no intentions of completing it.

She clenched her teeth. She wanted to pull him closer, to fold herself up around him and keep him here in this cabin. None of that was possible, so she settled for a kiss at his neck. 

“Sleep,” she whispered to him, smoothing her thumb over his knuckles. “I’ll be here.”

In response she felt him relax his full weight against her, his broad back flush with her breasts. She ran her free hand through his hair, combing it smooth, playing with the stubborn whorls no doubt caused by being caught in a steel helmet. She didn’t remember when she fell asleep, but the last thing she heard was the sound of his breathing evening out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is outside the purview of this fic, but I do have something planned (and mostly written) to expand on Din’s personal history. I’ll link to that when it’s up, because I think it gives important context to his evolving relationship with Omera, but it will also be dealing explicitly with sexual assault and is absolutely not required reading for this story to remain accessible. I’m still deliberating on whether I should post a fic centered around SA at all, but that’s another discussion. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much again for all your continued support and feedback!


	12. Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They aren’t the only game in town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s an unfortunately limited amount of information on Mandalorians available online, so to fill the gaps I’m going to be making some shit up. Any words in Mando’a that appear in this fic that aren’t “canon” will be in the endnotes. Everything else is from [mandoa.org](http://mandoa.org/).

An obnoxious, high-pitched beeping spoiled any dreams of waking peacefully. Omera jolted upright, hand flying to her throat, heart pounding.

The complete darkness of the cockpit only lent further to her disorientation, and it took her a moment to remember where she was. One hand went to rub at her eyes with a groan, the other to feel around on the floor beside her. “Din,” she rasped, wincing at the insistent klaxon still blaring near the front of his ship.

He’d been stirred from his sleep too, and she heard him stand up from the bedding with a grunt before feeling his way over to the dashboard. He muttered something in Mando’a, and judging by his tone, it was something foul.

Mercifully, the beeping shut off when he flicked a switch, and her ears rang in the resulting silence. He felt his way back over to the bedding and sat down beside her again with a sigh. 

“Morning,” she whispered, reaching a hand out to him and finding his knee. He met it with his own, his palm sliding overtop her hand. 

“Morning,” he murmured back, his voice still thick with sleep. 

Her face flushed. The memory of last night was fresh in the forefront of her mind, intensifying with the deep sound of his voice. She also remembered how their night had ended, giving her pause. 

“Did you sleep well?” she asked instead of leaning forward to kiss him, falling back to the usual rhythm of their conversations. 

“Very well,” he replied, his tone knowing and warm. She smiled even though he couldn’t see it. “You?”

“Wonderfully,” she told him, shifting closer. He moved in turn, and she felt her way to his side, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. His hand found her hair again, and she touched his jaw. “Until that alarm went off, anyway.”

“Sorry,” he murmured, his nose nudging against the crown of her head. “We should be dropping out of hyperspace soon.”

“Is there enough time to roll around on the floor with you again?”

He laughed into her hair, his shoulders shaking. “About ten minutes,” he replied softly.

Her other hand patted his chest. “Good. I just need to brush my teeth first.”

There was just enough room in the cargo bay for her to reach his sink. A few of the floor-mounted lights were on, casting everything in a faint incandescent yellow. He had no mirror, which she supposed made sense, so she’d have to settle with simply hoping her hair wasn’t too messy.

While she was cleaning up she heard him descend down the ladder. He’d put his boots back on in the meantime, along with the rest of his gear, and the soft light made the steel of his armour twinkle. He eased passed the scrap bundles and stood behind her, taking up the only available space. 

She wiped her mouth clean and looked up at him, smiling. “Maybe I can use your breastplate as a mirror,” she mused, nodding to his chest.

He looked down at himself. “Right. I still have to replace that. Jawas never gave it back.”

“It’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. With the limited amount of room, it was an easy task. “I’ll just have to rely on you to tell me how I look.”

He huffed out an amused breath. “You look good,” he whispered tentatively. She stood up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the swell of steel beside his visor, and his arm circled around her back. 

“Glad to hear it,” she whispered back. “Should I stand in the corner and close my eyes?”

His helmet tipped to the side in a good-humoured nod. “Just for a moment.”

They switched positions, squeezing by each other and tempting her fiercely to hold onto him for a few minutes or hours longer, but she turned around while he went to the sink and removed his helmet. She closed her eyes and listened to him brush his teeth with a smile.

“I’ll give you the lat-long when we get close,” she told him, leaning against a bulkhead. “Ulan should still be based in Marketsport on the southern continent. Or I’m assuming so, anyway. Like I said, it’s been a while.”

“What if she’s not there?” he asked, his words muffled by the brush in his mouth.

She winced. “I’m hoping that’s not the case. And I don’t think it will be—she’s carved out quite the business for herself. There  _ was _ no market when she started out.”

Aston was a winning combination of being both remote and liveable. She’d contemplated briefly, many years ago, to find refuge there instead of Sorgan, but it was too promising to too many other people—namely smugglers and drifters. She had no intentions of living amongst either, if only because she was well aware how much trouble they usually brought with them. But Ulan had always been a woman who thrived on that kind of chaotic charm, and Omera was certain that hadn’t changed in the years since they’d last seen each other.

“She’ll be there,” she said again, this time with more confidence. “And on the off chance she’s not, I’m sure someone’s taken her place that we can sell all of this to.”

He made a noise of agreement. After a moment she heard the water shut off, and then the lights dimmed to near blackness. She was about to turn when she heard him step up behind her, and even through his armour she could feel his warmth at her back. 

She turned around, and there was so little room that her arm brushed his chest. He closed that space immediately, ducking towards her, and she tipped her chin up to meet the eager press of his mouth with her own. 

His approach was unwieldy, and not just because they couldn’t see each other. His nose collided with hers, his hands bumping her arms before finding a proper place to settle. 

“Sorry,” he murmured, pulling back briefly to touch the bridge of her nose. 

She laughed and cupped the back of his head, pulling him forward again. “Don’t be,” she murmured into his mouth. “It’s sweet.”

He exhaled, and she swore she felt his face heat, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking. He responded by crowding her against the wall, and she tangled her fingers up in his hair as she kissed him back. He groaned, torn between leaning back into her hand and leaning forward into her lips, and she remedied that dilemma by pulling him flush against her. 

He was clearly a quick learner—that small bit of experience from last night was enough that he was actually kissing  _ her,  _ and not simply reacting to her kissing him. She met each movement of his lips just as eagerly, arching into him and inhaling his breath and revelling in the sharp taste of mint still fresh in his mouth. The erratic stubble on his chin was more apparent now, and it scraped pleasantly against her jaw as she worked to kiss him senseless.

It didn’t take very long. Despite his superior position, he quickly sagged into her body, his breath coming out in harsh rasps as she deepened their kiss. They quickly surpassed his limited familiarity with physical intimacy, so the hot, open-mouth kisses she gave him were messy and uncoordinated as he tried to keep up. But he  _ was _ keeping up—he leaned into her with a frantic desperation, like they’d never be able to do this again, and when she teased her tongue at his bottom lip, he shuddered hard enough to rock them both.

And then something else rocked them—a quake that ran through the length of the ship and made the bulkheads creak. It was jarring enough that she pulled back from him, gasping, clutching at his arms, and after a moment she heard his responding chuckle.

“It’s alright,” he said breathlessly, his forehead meeting hers. His breath washed over her face, hot and laboured. “We just entered normal space again.”

She nodded, swallowing hard, and squeezed her eyes shut. Every fibre in her body wanted to keep kissing him, but they had more pressing matters to attend to. She took deep, measured breaths instead, trying to slow her heart rate.

“Just have to...” she trailed off, huffing out a laugh. “Calm down a bit first.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, still leaning into her.

She held onto him for as long as she could, before he pulled away with a reluctant sigh and moved to where he’d set down his helmet. 

“I’ll meet you up there,” he told her, and she heard the hiss of his helmet attaching itself to his suit. They had to be all business now.

“Of course.”

* * *

The starports on Aston was surprisingly large for a planet of its obscurity, but most of the inbound ships in their lot looked like cargo transports. Judging by the brief aerial view they’d gotten of Ulan’s scrapping depot, she was the reason for all the traffic.

He was able to bank into an empty corner of the ship lot and land easily enough, though they were immediately hailed for parking fees. He ignored the automated policy warnings droning through the dashboard’s comms and looked back at Omera.

She was hunched over a datapad, frowning at the screen. “Looks like this is all still her’s,” she murmured, tapping a finger to her cheek. “And her office is fairly close by.”

“Makes sense,” he said, glancing out the cockpit window. “Looks like everyone is hauling big cargo here.”

“I’d like to speak with her first,” she said, putting the datapad aside and standing up from her seat. “Before we start unloading. Don’t want her to think we came all this way just to sell her scrap.”

He tilted his helmet, the silence between them turning sardonic, and Omera rolled her eyes. 

“I’m trying to minimise potential family drama,” she added, picking up her rifle and slinging it across her back. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

“I can’t, actually,” he replied, shutting off the engines. “My clan never fights.”

Omera  _ pfft _ ’ _ d _ at him to let him know how little she believed him, and with a smile he stood up from his chair and motioned for her to climb down to the cargo bay. He likely wouldn’t need his amban rifle, but the display of it alone was usually a good enough deterrent to anyone otherwise inclined to cause problems, so he slung it over his back before descending the ladder.

The climate outside was cool and dry, quite the opposite to the summer days they’d been enduring on Sorgan. Judging by the deep, calm inhale Omera took as they walked down the gangplank, she was enjoying that change immensely. 

He glanced around the lot as he waited for the ramp to close. It was mostly manned by droids, unloading hauls onto trailer beds or packing away large containers into the wide mouths of cargo transports. No one, droid or otherwise, paid them much mind, so he walked them over to the ship lot office to pay for the space before moving into the streets of Marketsport.

“It’s busy,” Omera observed beside him. Her hair was wound tight into a bun again, her face drawn in a harsh deadpan. Combined with her jumpsuit and rifle, she cut an intimidating silhouette. The people they shouldered around avoided her as much as they did him.

He agreed with a nod. Street-facing stalls were responsible for much of the crowds, enticing people to gather around and ogle their wares. He noted that most of them were either spice dealers and food vendors, full of opportunistic merchants who knew that their customers base this close to the starport largely consisted of weary scrap haulers passing through.

“We’ll probably have to get on the other side of the market to find anything useful,” Omera said, apparently coming to the same conclusion he had. “Hopefully it’s not all just drugs and food.”

“Depends on how many people live here,” he murmured. It was difficult to judge residency from the ground, and he knew better than to assume that any of the businesses here were permanent. Most planets this far out were unstable, and had incredibly high turnover rates as a result. It also made for an excellent place to find non-Guild work, something that he kept to himself for now.

Guide signs pointed them to the scrapyard. As they got closer, buildings rapidly became more imposing and the streets widened out. Businesses also quickly became more than just food stalls and drug traders—most of them were still hedonistic holes-in-the-wall, with meat markets giving way to bathhouses and cantinas, but the trade on Aston was clearly not limited to scrapping yards.

Omera made a noise of disgust and he looked over at her to see her nose was wrinkled and her brows furrowed.

“What?”

“You can’t smell that?” she asked, frowning at the alleyways they passed. “Smells like… rotting garbage.”

“Helmet filters most of it out,” he responded. “But I’m used to it either way.”

“I don’t envy you on that front,” she replied, breaking away from him momentarily to avoid an oddly coloured puddle on the street. 

“Keeps life interesting,” he said with a shrug, and to his delight that made her laugh.

“You visit a lot of unsavoury places, then,” she said. It wasn’t a question, exactly, more a gentle prod.

He nodded. “A lot of targets hole up in cities like this. Easy place to hide.”

“And have some fun in the meantime,” she added as they passed another bathhouse.

“It’s annoying when they’re in brothels,” he told her as they turned a corner, following the street signs pointing to major thoroughfares and businesses. “They usually put up a fight.”

Omera gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve pulled bounties out of places like that?”

“A few.” He paused and tipped his helmet in amusement. “Fistfighting naked men isn’t pleasant.”

She laughed again, grabbing a hold of his arm as she sidestepped another puddle. “But it is a wonderful mental image,” she said with a snort, covering her mouth. 

He smiled. “If you say so.”

Omera drew in breath to add more when he stopped and looked back into the maidan they’d just passed. A telltale flash had given a sudden, sharp tug at his soul. A beckoning he couldn’t ignore.

“What is it?”

“I thought I saw….” He magnified his visor and moved further into the square to see around the crowd. The familiar glint of well-worn beskar was unmistakable, and he found it again easily enough. 

An ache bloomed in his chest at the sight. He’d been right; the armour was a burnished, deep matte gold, the paint heavily scratched. The  _ Mando’ad _ wearing it was incredibly broad, though they could not have been much taller than he was. They’d stopped at a stall, picking idly at a bolt of fabric. He couldn’t see any clan insignia or MOS identifiers, but there was no question as to what they were.

“Din?” Omera touched his arm again, and he cleared his throat without looking away.

“Another Mandalorian,” he replied, and began to pull them both forward. “I just want to—”

“Do you know them?” 

“No,” he replied, crossing the square with a hand on her arm. “But they’ll be friendly.”

He kept his eyes glued to the stall even as he shoved around the crowd. Omera hurried to keep pace with him, but he was too transfixed to offer an apology for rushing her. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen another Mandalorian out in public, but the number of previous encounters could be counted on one hand. And if they were part of a covert on Aston… it could be a place of refuge once he left Sorgan. 

The stall owner looked up as they approached, eyes widening. The sight of a single Mandalorian was rare; two in the same place was almost a statistical impossibility. The old woman’s reaction made the other Mandalorian look up, and he saw them flinch back when their helmet turned in their direction. 

He stopped in front of the stall, nodding as he held out his arm in offer.  _ “Su cuy'gar, vod.” _

Their visor cocked, though not in appraisal. He could read the surprise in their body easily, but it wasn’t joyous. They seemed wary, uncertain.

After a moment of consideration, they extended their own arm—grabbing his hand, shaking it firmly. 

“Hello,” they replied in Basic. “Always good to see another Mando.” 

He could feel Omera staring at him, but he couldn’t look away from their visor. It was chipped, old, and heavily damaged. Something was off.

They cleared their throat nervously when he didn’t respond. “But ah, you’ve caught me at a bad moment, I’m afraid. I was about to leave.”

He let go of their hand, eyes narrowing. “You on Aston for work?”

“Yes,” they replied vaguely. Their helmet tipped to the stall owner and they took a generous step back. “Apologies. I must be off. Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

They moved away quickly, ambling towards the northern thoroughfare with a speed just below a jog. In less than a minute they were lost in the jostling crowds of people, gold armour gone from sight.

His other hand had settled on his blaster, and it tightened when Omera looked back at him.

“That’s not a Mandalorian,” he said through gritted teeth, answering her unasked question. “They’re just wearing the soul of one.”

* * *

She managed to pull him out of the maidan, into a side street, where she pushed him up against the wall of a building and checked the alley to make sure they were properly alone.

He was shaking, his hand finding a permanent home around the grip of his blaster while the other fisted at his side. She kept a tight grip on his arms, both to keep him steady and to prevent him from going anywhere.

“Din—”

“I have to kill them,” he told her, the words nearly a snarl. His voice had gone quiet, suffused with a disgusted rage she’d never heard from him before.

“Two Mandalorians fighting in the square is going to—”

“They are not  _ Mando’ad,”  _ he interrupted her harshly.  _ “Rubaku’manda.  _ Filth,” he spat, still shaking, and he glanced around the edge of the building into the maidan. “Creedless coward.”

She squeezed his biceps, forcing his gaze back to her. “You can’t fight them in the square,” she said after a moment. “Remember your boy. We can’t draw attention to ourselves.”

He took several deep, angered breaths, his breastplate rising up and down with the exaggerated movement. It was the angriest she’d ever seen him, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that his hand was still clamped to his sidearm.

“They killed a Mandalorian,” he said, sounding out of breath. His helmet fell back and knocked against the building. His voice was calmer, but he was still shaking with rage. “Took their beskar away from their body. They stripped them,” he breathed, his voice breaking off at the end with a sickened choke of breath.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not knowing what else to say. “But we—we have to stay focused. We need to keep a low profile.”

His free hand grabbed one of her arms and gently pried her off, and finally his hand fell away from his gun. After a moment and several more breaths, he nodded. “Yeah,” he replied. “Okay.”

She kept them there for another five minutes, allowing him space to calm down. Neither of them spoke. 

Eventually he cleared his throat again, letting out a sigh. “Let’s go,” he said tiredly, shoving away from the wall.

She caught his arm and he looked back at her. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said simply, and walked back into the square. She let go of him and followed.

If people gave them a wide berth before, now the crowd practically jumped out of their way to let them through. Din was no longer seething, but his shoulders were set rigidly and his gait was quick and purposeful. In a full suit of beskar and armed with several visible weapons, he looked like he was marching to arrange someone’s death. And he was very likely planning it. 

They exited the maidan and went back to the streets, following the signs pointing them to the scrapyard. She knew they were close; the smell of rust permeated the air, and the full, booming clang of metal being moved occasionally thundered in the distance.

When they turned the next corner, Din stopped and nodded ahead of them. “Looks like that’s it.”

She stopped beside him and looked up, towards the sign he’d nodded to.

_ ERUDITAL SCRAPPING DEPOT _

_ NO NEW REPUBLIC SCRAP OF ANY KIND _

_ SELF-SERVE WAREHOUSE IN REAR _

_ SHIP BREAKERS INQUIRE AT MAIN OFFICE _

At the end of the street was the entrance to the yards. The sign above it was massive and well-worn, wide enough to arch over the entire span of the street. High, thick fences stood on either side of the entrance, which was swung wide open and allowed them to see the massive towers of scrap that lay within. Swarms of some flying creatures circled high above the scrap, screeching and diving down to pick at the metal mountains.

“Looks like,” she agreed, but stopped him when he made to move forward. She wanted to embrace him—she wanted to go back to his ship and give him enough time to regain his composure, but she wasn’t about to risk having him spot the not-Mandalorian again.

“I need to know that you’re alright,” she told him, and his head ducked with a sigh.

“I’m fine to meet your sister,” he said, and she didn’t bother correcting him on their family connection right now. “But before we leave Aston, I need to find them again. I’ll do it quietly, but—”

“You’re sure they’re not a Mandalorian?”

“They shook my hand, not my arm,” he said, holding a gloved hand out and looking down at it. “They didn’t answer my hail in Mando’a. And they couldn’t wait to get away from me.” He shook his head. “They cannot be  _ Mando’ad.  _ And whoever they took that armour from—”

He didn’t finish his thought for a while. His shoulders twitched restlessly with unspent adrenaline, but the anger had been replaced with an exhaustion that made her chest ache. She waited for him patiently as he tried to speak again.

“I don’t know how to describe it to you,” he whispered finally. “But I can't allow them to walk around in a  _ vod’s  _ stolen skin.”

“We’ll get this business with Ulan sorted,” she told him. “We’ll get what we need. After that, you do what you have to.”

“You don’t need to come with me,” he said, looking back towards the scrapyards. “You can stay with your sister.”

“We’ll figure that out later,” she promised him. “Come on.”

He allowed her to lead them into the scrapyards. The street ended abruptly at the entrance, the concrete replaced with a wide, trampled dirt path. Seemingly endless towers of ferrous scrap lined the pathway, creating the convincing illusion of a city street made entirely of junk metal.

“She’s expanded considerably,” Omera murmured, slowing as she tried not to ogle. The piles clearly had some defined pattern to them, though she couldn’t discern what. 

“Looks like an office up ahead,” Din said beside her, nodding down the path. There was a ring of open space about fifty metres ahead of them, clear except for a one-storey building that looked like a rusty dollhouse beside the mountains of scrap. 

“Ready?” she asked him one last time.

“Ready,” he replied, and the steadiness in his voice was enough to spur her on.

* * *

Ulan has not changed much in the decade or so since she’d seen her last. Her dark hair was streaked with grey, and her face had lines on it that Omera wasn’t familiar with, but it was still very much her.

She was in the middle of talking with someone when they entered the office. The building was dingy, sparsely furnished and clearly only used for business negotiations. There was a desk near the far wall with two old chairs in front of it, and a locked door that led into the back room of the office. Aside from a covered window and a holo-board on the wall that listed off the price and demand of various ship parts, the office was bare.

“Yes, obviously,” she heard Ulan say to the woman standing in front of her, her cheek perched on an upraised fist as she sat slack in her office chair. “That’s not the issue.”

“It can still be repaired,” the other woman insisted, her hands planted on the desk. “The harness is intact—”

“I have two eyes in my head,” Ulan interrupted her, and she finally cast a glance in their direction. “You can’t… fool....”

“Ulan,” Omera greeted, smiling faintly. The other woman turned to look at them.

Ulan didn’t move or speak. Her eyes had gone wide, twitching between the two of them. Omera wasn’t sure which of them were a greater shock to see standing in her office.

“Go outside, Zedd,” she said then, not looking away. The other woman frowned but didn’t protest, cognisant of Ulan’s steely tone. She broke away from the desk and shouldered past them both, and the door opened and closed behind them with a laboured hiss.

Ulan stood up from her seat as they took a few more steps inside. It was small enough that three people were a crowd, and Din’s bulk took up considerable space. But Ulan’s eyes had settled on Omera, and she approached her slowly as she walked around the desk.

“Omera,” she whispered, stopping a few paces away. “Where is Rishan’s daughter?”

“Safe,” she assured her with a smile. “Winta’s back home.”

At that she moved forward, pulling Omera into a harsh embrace. Ulan’s hugs were hard, a trait she had always differed sharply on from her brother. She hugged her back, and Ulan pulled away a moment later to look at her, still no less shocked at her sudden appearance.

“It’s been a long time,” she told her, her grip like iron on Omera’s arms. “You look well.”

“It has,” she agreed. “And so do you.”

“Sit, then,” Ulan said, pointing to the chairs. It was not a request. “I will bring tea.”

She disappeared into the locked door beside her desk, and Omera glanced back at Din, who unlatched his rifle from his back and moved to the chairs.

They sat down beside one another, their weapons placed on the floor in front of them. The air inside her office was even more dry than outside, and she was grateful Ulan was bringing them something to drink. She wasn’t used to arid climates anymore.

Ulan appeared a few minutes later, three drinks balanced in her hands. She set them down on the desk before collapsing into her chair, dragging herself forward as the wheels rolled back.

“Drink,” she ordered, and Omera picked up the nearest cup. The mug was chipped and the tea was dark and smelled bitter, but the warmth was welcome against her hands. She wasn’t used to chilly weather, either. 

When Din didn’t grab his, Ulan cocked her head. “You having trouble, friend?”

“No,” he replied evenly. “Thank you. I’m not thirsty.”

Ulan’s eyes snapped to Omera. Any of the warmth in her face had evaporated, leaving her expression hard and cold. “It’s been a decade since I saw you last. You come armed, and in my niece’s stead you bring a Mandalorian who refuses my hospitality.”

She saw Din’s hand tighten on his leg in her periphery. “It’s quite alright,” she assured her. “And it’s kind of a long—”

“You do not dictate terms to me in my office,” Ulan interrupted her, pausing to drink her tea. She set it down on the desk in front of her with a hard  _ thunk.  _ “But you will explain yourself.”

Omera held back a sigh, trying to be patient. “We bring business,” she began, deciding then that Ulan would not entertain any attempt at preamble. She’d hoped the woman would have softened with age, but the opposite seemed true. 

When her sister-in-law arched a dark brow, Omera told her the rest. That she’d come to live as a farmer on Sorgan, raising Winta in a peaceful village, far away from conflict. She told her that despite her efforts, conflict had, inevitably, come to her doorstep. She told her of the raids, of the imperial walker, of how they’d come to ask the Mandalorian and his friend for help. And she told her, then, of the bountiful scrap they’d brought, already sorted and catalogued. Ulan listened intently, absorbing her story with a stoney expression and the occasional nod, and when she was done, Ulan let out an amused huff.

“You’ve come for money, then,” she surmised, quite uncharitably, and flicked another disapproving look at Din. “With a bodyguard to scare me.”

“With a pilot,” Omera corrected her, allowing some of the frustration she felt to bleed into her words. “I couldn’t have come here without him.”

“Yes. Rishan had always been your ride.” Ulan drained her cup and looked around the office, as if searching for what to say next. “You have a manifest, then?”

“I do,” she replied, pulling a small datapad from her jumpsuit’s pocket and passing it to Ulan. She accepted it without a word, scrolling through the list of parts they’d salvaged from the walker. She gave no indication as to whether the selection pleased her.

Omera glanced at Din in the silence. He was staring directly ahead, his back straight and his hands resting on either one of his legs. She wasn’t fooled by his calm stillness; she knew he was on edge, from the encounter in the maidan as well as from Ulan, and that he would be ready with his sidearm at the first whiff of a confrontation. 

Luckily, Ulan’s expression softened a little when she set down the datapad. “You have some rare items,” she said finally. “They’ll be of use to me.”

“I’d like to sell you all of it,” Omera told her.

Ulan shrugged. “That won’t be an issue.”

Another pause of silence. There was something hanging between them, left unsaid. There were many things, really, but Omera couldn’t be sure which ones were pertinent right now. 

“But?” she asked, and Ulan smiled.

“But these are unique circumstances,” she told them. “You say you need money for medical supplies. Infrastructure upgrades. Security.”

Omera winced and saw Din shift beside her. She’d miscalculated. Ulan was not someone to be honest with. The man sitting beside her was not her husband; more importantly, he was also not Ulan’s brother. That gulf had put more strain on their relationship than she’d thought.

Omera narrowed her eyes. “Why is that of any concern?” 

“It’s a pressure point,” Ulan informed her. “We all have them.”

Din sighed beside her, clearly impatient, and Ulan finally began paying attention to him again.

“Am I boring you?”

“You’re stalling,” he said. “What is it that you want?”

She rose from her seat again, bracing both hands flat on the desk, and stared directly into his faceplate. “You sit on my land, in my office,” she said in a low voice. “Your ass is warming my chair. I’ll talk for however long I please, Mandalorian, and you will listen.”

* * *

A point eventually emerged in the midst of Ulan’s endless posturing; she needed help with something, and they were going to be in her service. A pressure point of her own.

“Alliance Scrapping set themselves up several months ago,” she told them. She was in the middle of the office now, using the holoboard to bring up a map of Marketsport. Her depot was the largest swath of land in the city by far, but she was focused on another yard at the east end of the city. “Specifically, as a ship breaking yard for New Republic craft.”

“I saw you don’t take in their scrap,” Omera said beside him. She was drinking his cup of tea now.

“I don’t,” Ulan replied, crossing her arms. “You give anyone a reason to steal from New Republic shipyards or take down their craft and they will. As long as their shit is off limits, Aston isn’t on their radar. Any idiot unlucky enough to come into New Republic scrap has to sell it elsewhere. Until now,” she said with an annoyed sigh. “And since there was no market for it up to this point, it’s easy pickings.”

“So you want us to help you win a turf war,” Din said, leaning back in the seat so he could cross his ankles. “How?”

Ulan gave him a glare that he was well used to by now. “Speak when spoken to and perhaps you’ll learn that information without asking for it.” She turned back to the holo-board and expanded the map, scaling it to the rival scrapyard. “I scheduled a meeting with them to discuss this unfortunate wrinkle. It’s tomorrow night, so it’s lucky that you arrived when you did.”

“Why do you need our help, specifically?” Omera asked. “I’m happy to, but—surely you have more informed allies to help you negotiate.”

“Negotiation is not where I am lacking,” she replied. “But you’ve somehow acquired the services of a Mandalorian. If their reputation is to be believed,” she continued, making it clear that she was deeply skeptical of those claims, “then I won’t need to hire any of the buffoons down in the security office.”

“I don’t work for free,” he cut in, catching the looks of both women. “My rates are separate from what you’ll give us for the walker.”

Ulan raised an amused brow, as if she were humouring him. He really did not like her. “Which are?”

“Depends on what you want me to do,” he countered. “But they aren’t cheap.”

“And I’m not either,” Ulan said. “I am, however, busy. Very busy, in fact. So many transactions that it could potentially take weeks to process your scrap.”

“Ulan—” Omera rubbed a hand over her face. “I know we haven’t spoken in a long time, but is this really—”

“No, we haven’t,” she cut her off, her words growing harsh again. “Almost ten years. You disappear after getting my brother killed and steal my niece away, and now you come to me with a stranger guarding your back demanding I pay you for this generous  _ gift _ you’ve given me.” Ulan’s lip curled up in a snarl. “It’s a wonder I don’t throw you out of here.”

Omera had become more agitated with each word, and by now she was shaking in her seat, her hands fists around the edges of her chair. Her jaw was clenched, and it was a long, tense minute before she spoke again.

“I am not,” she began slowly, “relitigating old history with you, especially not with an audience.”

“How noble of you,” Ulan said back. “But I’m willing to forgo that, as well as my massive order list, and rush your sale, provided you help me on this job.”

“And what is it you want us to do?” Din said, trying not to grind his teeth.

“I’m not leaving their office without their full cooperation, and failing that….” She grinned wickedly. “I want you to help me win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Rubaku’manda_ = stolen soul. Derived from _ru bakur,_ the past tense form of the verb _bakur,_ meaning to steal, and _manda,_ which means soul. Ideologically derived from the traditional Mandalorian understanding that beskar (and by extension, the armour it is crafted from) is a core component of the Mandalorian soul. 
> 
> Also: the side fic mentioned in the previous chapter [is now up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22187617). Again, it’s dealing with some pretty heavy topics, and I encourage you to skip over it if it’s at all going to bother you.


	13. Priorities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's got different priorities.

“No.”

The office was silent as the two women processed what he’d just said. Ulan’s sharp smile quickly dissolved into fury as she recovered from her shock.

“Excuse me?”

“No deal,” he said, and felt Omera’s glare on the side of his visor like an iron brand. “We aren’t helping you start a bloodbath.”

Omera stood up from her chair and grabbed his arm. Her knuckles went white with how tight her grip was. “Can you give us a moment?” 

“Door’s right there,” Ulan said with a nod, running her tongue across her teeth beneath closed lips. He could see her pulse beating at her throat, and she made no effort to conceal her anger.

“We’ll be right back,” Omera assured her, and began walking towards the exit. With her hand still fused to his arm, he had no choice but to stand up from his seat and follow her. He did, however, grab both of their rifles up off the floor and carry them out.

They got about a dozen paces away from the office before Omera stopped short and rounded on him. She didn’t bother to hide her own rage, either.

“What are you doing?” she hissed furiously, her nostrils flaring as she tried to control her temper. 

“Saving both of our lives,” he said as calmly as he could, clipping the amban rifle to his back and passing Omera her own gun. She took it roughly, her jaw tightening and glare deepening.

He let out a sigh and tried again. “Look, I’ve been approached by enough people like Ulan to know she doesn’t want to do anything but start a gunfight. That—lunatic has no intentions of being diplomatic, and she wants us to be her meatshields when she decides she’s had enough fun and pulls the trigger.”

Omera said nothing, slipping the rifle sling around her shoulders. He realised that she agreed with him, but she was too angry to admit that right now.

“Where else are we going to go?” she asked him, her throat working as she swallowed. “The further we travel, the more expensive it’ll be, the longer we’ll be gone—”

“We’ll find someplace else,” he assured her, and then snorted humourlessly. “Hell, we could even sell to the Alliance scrapyard.”

Omera didn’t find that idea funny. She shook her head. “We can arrange a different agreement with Ulan—”

“‘Keep a low profile’,” he quoted to her. “That’s what you said to me, right? How’s that work if we help her gun down her competition?”

“How is that going to work if we start planet-hopping?” she countered. “Everywhere you’re seen, people notice you. I can’t believe the amount of staring we got just walking through the market.”

“Well, we certainly don’t have time to go on her wait list,” he said, looking back at the office. “That’s assuming she’d even let us after this conversation.”

“Yes,” Omera agreed derisively. “I’d prefer if you not be so blunt. And to not make decisions for the both of us without at least talking to me first.”

“Ulan doesn’t strike me as someone who’d take ‘no’ for an answer any better if I put a bow on it.”

Omera let out an annoyed sigh, and both of them found an excuse to glare off in different directions. 

He looked further into the yard while Omera fumed at the dirt in front of her. If Ulan was lying about her wait list, it was a pretty believable lie; the yard was teeming with workers and scrap haulers and droids, and ships flew overhead nearly as often as the creatures circling the scrap heaps. 

Omera rubbed a hand over her face and eventually looked back at him. “Our history is… complicated,” she said finally, sounding more tired than angry.

He looked away from the yard and back to her. “With your sister?”

“In-law,” she corrected him with a slight quirk of her mouth, but she sobered quickly. “More complicated than I thought. Stupid,” she muttered with a sigh, more to herself than him. “I should’ve realised.”

“We can find someplace else,” he said. “Someplace simpler.”

Omera shook her head. “But she was telling the truth in there, about Rishan. It was my fault he died.”

“Omera—”

“And I owe her,” she continued. “A lot. She took us in after we escaped the camp, helped us get our feet under ourselves and start a new life. She could’ve turned us away, and it would’ve been much easier for her if she had.”

He considered his words carefully before replying. “Are you saying we need to take the job?”

“I’m saying it’s complicated.” She hadn’t looked away from him. Her eyes were dark, troubled, and she chewed at her bottom lip. “I owe it to Rishan to help her, if nothing else.”

He took a deep breath, searching for what to say. The quibble over a difference in parentage baffled him, but it was apparently significant enough to be a factor in their relationship. That observation didn’t seem particularly useful to voice at the moment, so he kept it to himself.

“What about Winta?” he asked instead, and her expression hardened further.

“What about her?”

He tapped his knuckles on his breastplate, and her eyes drew down to his chest. “I’ve got a full set of armour on,” he said carefully. “And I hunt for a living. If—when—this talk goes sideways, I’ll be prepared.”

“You think I won’t be?” She crossed her arms and looked away, glaring into the distance. “I know the risks.”

“I promised her that both of us would come back,” he said quietly. She still didn’t turn back to look at him. “Unharmed.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” she replied, just as quietly. “I’m just—”

The door hissed open and both of them looked up. Ulan filled the frame, her hands on her hips as she stared down at them both. “Well?”

“Ulan,” Omera said slowly, her tone measured and careful. “There must be something else. We’re trying to avoid getting into any gunfights if—”

“It won’t come to that,” she replied immediately, and then cocked her head. “And this isn’t a pick-and-choose. I’ve come to you for help on a matter of importance to me, and you turn me down.”

“It’s dangerous,” Din said. “Too high-profile.”

“The reason they’re called favours is because they’re inconvenient, friend,” Ulan said with a dark smile. “And yet here I thought Mandalorians loved a good fight.”

“I’m not looking for work at the moment,” he replied, and she smiled in a way that told him she knew he was lying. “But I appreciate the offer.”

“No you don’t,” she said with a harsh laugh. “You’ve been nothing but foul since you arrived here. Are all of you so rude to clients?”

“You’re not a client of mine.”

“Ah, but you’re here in my yard, begging me for money.” She walked slowly down the steps of the office, arms swinging casually by her side. She stopped in front of Omera, giving her a disgusted once-over. “You haven’t changed a bit. Come to me for help and then leave when things get tough.”

“That’s not what this is,” Omera said back. “And you’re not the only person in the world I have commitments to.”

Ulan’s eyes flicked to Din. “Clearly.”

No one spoke. He wondered, very briefly, if Ulan was angry enough to lash out, and that maybe they would have a shootout after all. But then she took a step back and gave a disgusted snort.

“Fine,” she spat, spreading her arms. “Fine. Then we don’t have a deal.” 

“Ulan,” Omera insisted. “There must be something we can—”

“Help me with this matter, or get the fuck off my land,” she said flatly. “I’m not the one who needs to negotiate with you.”

There was another pause. He could feel the air beating with tension as Omera shifted beside him, undoubtedly trying to find something more to say.

In the meantime, Ulan took the datapad Omera had brought out of her pocket and shoved it back at her. “But if it’s not too much trouble for you,” she continued, her lips pursing slightly with her derisive tone. “Stop by the security office to let them know a Mandalorian is too cowardly to stand in a warehouse for me, so I’ll need to hire their services instead.”

He bristled. “I don’t fight honourless battles,” he cut in, and Ulan’s sharp grin turned back to him.

“Makes one of you,” she replied. “The Alliance’s Mando doesn’t have the same qualms. Perhaps honour isn’t the common denominator here.”

He tried to mask his surprise, and with considerable effort. She was either lying, or she was talking about the  _ hut’uun _ they’d spotted in the maidan. There was no other possible options.

“Their what?”

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he’d lost whatever dance they’d been doing. Ulan saw the hint of an exposed nerve and immediately dug her claws in.

“Would you like to be acquainted?” she asked, her brow arching. “They have him on retainer. Execs don’t go anywhere without him.”

He made another mistake by glancing at Omera. She’d gone wide-eyed too, behind Ulan’s shoulder, and that small hesitation only made her sister’s grin widen.

“They’re not a Mandalorian,” Din eventually responded.

“Ah. You are familiar, then.” She looked back at Omera, teeth glinting in the grey sunlight. “Sounds like there is much more to discuss. Why don’t we go back into my office?” 

* * *

His seat squeaked every time he moved his leg. And he was moving his leg a lot.

She empathised, probably more than he was aware. Spending a day with Ulan was exhausting when they weren’t being semi-threatened into doing her dirty work. She was so tired she barely touched her dinner, but poked the food around the take out container she’d picked up on their way back.

A loud clang rang out in the cargo bay below, and the armrest on Din’s chair made a concerning cracking sound as his hand clenched around it. 

Omera gave him a patient look. “They’re almost done.”

“They’ve been in here for two—for two hours and forty-seven minutes,” he said, turning to read off the chrono on his dashboard. The movement of his rocking leg made the chair squeak again.

“Ulan said it would take about three hours.”

The scoff he gave indicated that he did not believe a word Ulan said. Omera would normally be inclined to agree, but on matters of business, she trusted the woman’s judgement.

“You should eat,” she tried again, knowing it was pointless but having little else to distract him with. He’d calmed from his initial furore at discovering one of the many other non-negotiable terms of Ulan’s deal was that her scrapping droids would be hauling the walker parts back to her yard, but he was still very much on edge. She decided that asking him why this was such a point of contention would be a line of inquiry for another time.

“I’m not hungry,” he replied automatically, but he glanced at the food container she’d set on his dashboard. She knew he was lying; they’d been at Ulan’s office for hours before this, and he hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day.

She smiled. “I’ll turn around.”

He shook his head before jerking his helmet towards the ladder. “Not until they’ve all left.”

They didn’t talk again until a small scrap droid poked its head up from the ladder and gave a chipper confirmation that they’d completed the job. Din only glared at it until it ducked back down, and he waited for all of them to exit the ship completely before climbing down into the hold to close the bay doors. She could hear him inspecting the rest of the hold while he repressurised the ship, tapping on bulkheads and keying buttons to make sure the only thing that had been removed was the scrap—and that they hadn’t put any sort of monitoring device somewhere. Whatever he was muttering to himself was both too soft for her to catch full sentences and in Mando’a.

When he climbed back up into the cockpit several minutes later, it was with a deep sigh.

“All good?” she asked.

“Everything’s locked up,” he replied, clearly not able to fully commit to calling their current situation  _ good.  _ He sat down in his chair again, looking much more exhausted than he had a few minutes ago, and slumped into the seat. 

“Eat,” she encouraged, and turned her chair away from him. After a moment of silence, she heard a soft hiss as his helmet detached from the rest of his suit. He fumbled with the food container, and she set her own now-empty one aside.

“I looked up the address where Ulan wants to meet tomorrow morning,” she told him, listening to him dig into his meal behind her. “It’s a—well, it’s in a bathhouse.”

“Of course it is,” he muttered around his food. 

“They have private rooms,” Omera said amusedly, sitting back in her seat. “Maybe that’s why.”

He made a hum low in his throat, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her. She was sure he had much stronger thoughts on the matter, but he was clearly too invested in eating to share them right now.

She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. “It’ll be fine,” she murmured, unsure if she was talking to him or to herself. “It’s one evening of listening to her argue with some execs.”

“Keep near an exit,” he said, pausing to swallow his food. “And don’t stand too close to your sister.”

“You keep calling her that,” she said, nearly turning around to look at him. “Why?”

She heard the soft scrape of his pauldrons against the seat as he shrugged. “Family is more than blood.”

“Yeah, well,” she sighed. “I don’t know if she’s family anymore.”

Perhaps the more pertinent question was if Ulan ever  _ had _ been family. Ulan had loved her brother dearly, and Omera’s connection with him meant she had fallen under his sister’s protection, but it had always depended on Rishan. Her venom had risen to the surface once he’d died, and time apart had clearly not diluted it. Not that she blamed the woman, really. 

She wasn’t even sure any of that mattered. Her debt with Ulan was no less real for having a strained relationship. Wiping it clean would be a relief—and a final favour to Rishan. Provided they survived, of course.

They would. They had to.

Apparently Din’s thoughts had taken a similar turn, because his voice was grim when he spoke again. “I mean it about not standing too close to her,” he said. “They’ll try to take her out first if things go sour.”

“I’ve been in a few firefights,” she reminded him, but there was no bite in her words. “I know how it goes.”

“I could go with her,” he suggested. “By myself. She only really seemed keen on having me there.”

Omera almost turned around again before catching herself. “Absolutely not. We agreed to this together.”

“That doesn’t—”

“It does,” she cut him off. She glanced down at her folded hands, picking at a ragged fingernail. She paused before speaking again. “You speak of debts often.” 

“I have many,” he said. “And I have to decide which ones take priority at any given moment.”

“Such as an obligation to kill people who impersonate Mandalorians?”

He went silent again. “It’s more than that,” he murmured.

“And so is this,” she whispered back.

He had nothing to say to that.

While he finished his meal, she took advantage of the newly-vacated cargo hold and used his shower. His warnings about a lack of hot water didn’t deter her; she was mostly using it as an excuse to collect her thoughts.

It was a straightforward enough deal. Ulan would bring them their money in the morning, and they’d spend the day going over whatever her plans were for the meeting. She’d been light on details, but the promise of contact with the not-Mandalorian they’d met in the maidan was enough to tip the scales for Din. The circumstances for that meeting were something neither of them were happy about, but Omera was glad he was at least willing now.

Yet it still nagged at her. Her thoughts drifted back to Winta, to her promise to the village that they would come back with medical supplies, weapons, farming equipment—enough to keep them secure for at least the next few decades. The raiders had set them back, exposing how fragile their stability truly was, and she couldn’t count on stumbling across more friendly hired guns the next time some conflict arrived at their doorstep.

There were many debts, as Din had phrased it.

When she was finished washing, she dried herself and dressed in sleeping clothes before beginning the long process of braiding back her hair. She needed it up and away from her face, compact enough that it would be hard for someone to grab in a fight. With a pang of homesickness, she wove a single thick, turquoise thread through the braid, a burst of colour that made her throat tighten whenever she looked at it. It had only been two days, and yet she missed Winta fiercely. She missed the village. She even missed the heat.

She became totally absorbed in the routine feel of her hair in her fingers, and was brought out of her own thoughts only when she heard the cockpit door slide open. 

The clatter of his boots stopped at the top of the ladder. “May I come down?”

“Yes,” she called back, and watched Din descend into the hold. His helmet was back on, and the meal seemed to have put him at ease, but he’d clearly been stewing in his own thoughts as well.

“What do you think?” she asked, angling her hand to show him her half-braided hair. “It’s been awhile since I wore it in this style.”

“It’s nice,” he murmured, somewhat absently. He sat down across from her on the deck, his legs folding loosely together. The cargo hold wasn’t particularly large, but now that it was empty except for them, it felt cavernous.

“I usually only wear it like this for festivals,” she told him. “We weren’t able to have any this year with the raiders.”

“Omera….”

“A few months ago that walker was terrorising everyone,” she continued, nodding her chin towards the bay doors. “Now it’s going to rust away in Ulan’s scrapyard. I still can’t believe I’m here. Without Winta, with you.”

He clearly picked up on the way her words softened out at the end, because he leaned forward a little. When he spoke, his voice was just as soft.

“Are you sure about this?”

“No,” she said easily. “I’m not. But we’ve already agreed to help her. And she’s giving us a lot of money for the walker. It’s done, and we’ll see it through.”

He took in her words with a careful nod. “Okay.”

“Are you?”

“It’s not… ideal,” he said after a moment. “But it’s the most convenient, all things considered.”

“What about the—the not-Mandalorian?”

His shoulders sagged. “If it somehow doesn’t come to a fight, I’ll put a tracker on him and find him after.”

“You’re certain you’re going to kill him, then?”

“It’s like watching someone wear the body of a family member,” he whispered. “It’s sick. And—” He let out a breath, but there was no real humour in it. “The livelihood of every Mandalorian rests on our reputation. It’s the only thing people trust. If he hasn’t done the training, if he’s sloppy with his work—it could get other  _ Mando’ade _ killed.”

“That might work in our favour,” she replied, continuing to braid her hair. “If everyone thinks he’s a great warrior, he might be the extent of their security detail.”

“He’s either never been in a fight and riding on reputation alone, or—” His helmet tipped again. “Or he’s a decent fighter. Someone would’ve killed him otherwise.”

“Here’s hoping it’s the former.”

Din watched her braid her hair and she relished the easier quiet between them. The day had been long and arduous, and though she wasn’t physically tired, spending hours going back and forth with Ulan about prices, responsibilities, and logistics had been mentally taxing. 

When she was done, she let the braid hang down her back. She’d pin it up in the morning, but for now they would sleep. 

Omera stood up with a groan and Din followed her. When she reached for him he gathered close, letting out a sigh when she pressed her forehead to his visor.

“It’ll be fine,” she said again, and with more confidence than she felt. 

He nodded against her. “It’ll be fine,” he echoed, his arm wrapping around her back. She wanted him to take his helmet off so that she could kiss him. She wanted to him to take the rest of his armour off so she could do a lot more than kiss him.

“Your shower is terrible, by the way,” she whispered instead, settling for being held close. It was a pretty good alternative, all things considered.

He laughed quietly. “I know. Maybe I’ll get it fixed when we’re done here.”

It was her turn to nod. “Let’s go to sleep,” she murmured. “I’m tired.”

They still slept in the cockpit, and by her own request. The cargo hold felt too large, too empty for just the two of them. And as a testament to his own exhaustion, he only ducked down to her for a brief, soft kiss after shutting off the lights and removing most of his gear for bed.

“It’s nice,” she whispered when they were settled properly on the floor, feeling his arm drape around her waist as he curled up behind her. “Sleeping next to somebody again.”

He hummed in agreement, his nose nudging her hair as his breathing quickly evened out. She brought his hand up to kiss his knuckles, and then relaxed back against him, relishing the resolute warmth and lean strength of his body. 

* * *

When the Mandalorian had first arrived on Sorgan, he’d struck her as a naturally serious and somewhat surly person. She’d come to learn otherwise in a number of rather delightful ways, but seeing how ill-tempered he was now made that initial assessment feel quaint in comparison.

“At least the place looks fairly clean,” she offered. Grated screens walled off the lobby from the main level, but she could still hear the splash of water and the quiet laughs of patrons enjoying themselves further into the bathhouse. 

“Ridiculous,” Din muttered. Armed from head to toe—quite literally—he could not have been more out of place against the backdrop of marble floors and faded frescos. The outside of the bathhouse was rather unremarkable; clearly all the money and effort went into decorating the interior. 

She patted his arm in what she hoped was a consoling gesture. They were waiting for an attendant to guide them to Ulan’s private room, and it had not helped that the man who’d greeted them at the door had been completely naked.

“Have you ever been to one of these?” she asked amusedly, and his helmet swivelled in her directly with open incredulity. “On business or otherwise.”

“A few times,” he replied after getting over his shock at the question, and she heard the grudging humour in his words. “But only on hunts.”

“Ah.”

A pause. “Have you?”

She bit her lip. “Which answer would amuse you more?”

He seemed to be grappling with how to respond when an employee opened a door to their left. She had just as much clothing on as the first one had, and Omera heard Din’s knuckles pop as he clenched a fist by his side.

“This way,” the woman called, beckoning them with a warm smile. “Apologies for the wait.”

“It’s fine,” Omera replied, and they followed after her. The woman was a Twi’lek, and the only thing adorning her body was a jewelled head wrapping. Omera kept her gaze at eye level, and they both remained silent as she guided them up a flight of stairs and into a chamber with a heavy, manually-locking door that looked like it was made of solid wood.

When they entered, Omera was both relieved and surprised to find that there was no open bath and Ulan was sitting fully clothed on a couch. The massive bed centred on the back wall gave some indicating as to what else the room would be used for, but there was enough furniture aside from that for them to be seated properly.

“Thank you, Veth,” Ulan said to the woman who’d brought them in. 

She winked at Ulan and grabbed the door handle. “Ring if you need more refreshments.”

When the door closed fully, Ulan swept her hand towards the couch on the other side of the luxurious table in front of her. “Please have a seat.”

Not risking a glance at Din, Omera simply went to the couch and sat down. He sat beside her, and she saw the immediate frustration in the lines of his body draw taut when they sank low into the cushions. 

Despite the low angle, she had a better look at the rest of the room now. It was just as lavishly decorated as the lobby and main level—plants hung from braided baskets bolted to the ceiling; large paintings of naked figures engaging in lewd acts covered the walls; and the floor was adorned with a heavy carpet that looked thick enough to sleep on. The table in front of them was covered with fruits, cheeses, and a generous decanter of wine that Ulan had already sampled from, judging by the red ring around her now-empty glass.

“Is this necessary?” Din asked, having made the same assessment and was clearly displeased with what he found.

“I wanted to drink while we talked,” Ulan replied, and reached over to refill her glass. The only other people in the room with them were three of her guards, who all seemed at ease despite the rifles hanging from their chests.

“Please,” Ulan said around her glass, gesturing to the food spread. “Eat.”

When neither of them reached for food, she rolled her eyes and set down her drink. “Boring, the both of you.”

Din shifted on the couch, trying not to sink down further. “You said you were bringing a map of their warehouse.”

“We’ll get to that later,” she said, waving a hand. “First things first—”

She reached for one of her guards, who picked up something from behind the couch and passed it over. It was a plain grey camtano, and Ulan took it from her guard before handing it over to Omera. 

She accepted it and sat it awkwardly in her lap before turning the handle and disengaging the lock. The side panels fell away with a hiss to reveal neat stacks of credits—more than Omera had seen in years. But she didn’t need to count them to know this wasn’t the price they’d agreed on.

“This only looks like half,” she said, glancing up. “Maybe less.”

Ulan nodded. “I’ll give you the other half when the job is done.”

“That wasn’t the deal,” Din said beside her, standing up. Her guards went from bored to alert in an instant, their hands falling to their rifles.

She waved them off and smiled up at the Mandalorian. “I’m not an idiot,” she said evenly. “The pair of you practically held your noses when you agreed to this. If I pay you in full now, you’ll fly off with the money and I’ll have been taken for a chump.”

“A deal is a deal,” Omera said to her, earning her gaze. “We aren’t going to back out now.”

“Previous experience says otherwise,” she drawled. Her tone was casual, but the steel beneath them was clear. The smile she flashed was all teeth. “Please sit back down.”

“I’d rather not,” Din replied, cocking his head towards the nearest guard, who’d twitched at his words.

She considered them both for a moment, clearly wondering how hard to press her thumb down. The wine had apparently put her in a good mood; she conceded to him with a nod before turning back to Omera.

“The meeting is at seven tonight,” she said, grabbing for the bag beside her and opening it to pull out what looked like a small receiver. “I’ve agreed to meet them on their turf.”

“Why?” Din asked. There wasn’t much room to pace, so he settled back against the wall beside the couch. “Be easier to plan security on your land.”

“A necessary compromise,” she replied. “They wouldn’t meet anywhere else.”

“Because they knew it would turn bloody?” Omera offered, and one of Ulan’s brows flicked up.

“This is purely a diplomatic endeavour. But they’re paranoid, and I can’t fault them for that.”

She was out of her depth, talking to a woman like Ulan. It had been years since she’d been so boldly lied to by another person, and about something as serious as their lives. Din’s approach didn’t seem particularly effective, either; perhaps that was why he said he didn’t take jobs from people like this. 

Omera sighed. “What do we need to know?”

* * *

The food spread was eventually replaced with practical things; the model of the warehouse with exits and windows indicated, namely. 

He looked it over critically, frowning at how many points of entry there were. Four side exits and a large hangar door that could accommodate incoming cargo. It meant there was no safe place to turn their backs, and no one person would have a full view of all the exits. 

“You’re bringing extra guards with you?” he asked, looking up at Ulan. She’d reclined further in her seat, now a few glasses into the wine. At least she was more pleasant to speak with now.

“No,” she replied, and pointed between him and Omera. “Just you two. If I bring an army they’ll get spooked. And you’re like an all-in-one deal anyway.”

“Still only have two eyes,” he muttered, frowning back down at the map. She’d given him an estimate on their own numbers—a guard for each executive, plus the  _ hut’uun. _ Seven to three wasn’t terrible odds, but it wasn’t great, either. 

“There'll be a landspeeder waiting for us just outside their yard,” she told him, and grabbed the receiver she’d taken out earlier to contract the map’s scale out, which now showed the immediate streets surrounding the Alliance scrapyard. A small marker appeared showing where the landspeeder would be. “I’ll pack a few of my men in there.”

“So you want us to just stand there and look intimidating?” Omera asked. She came up beside him to look at the map, her hand settling on his pauldron. He caught the scent of the soap she’d used in her hair, and with a pang he wished he’d done more than given her a single kiss last night.

Focus, he reminded himself. 

“You both seem generally equipped for that sort of thing,” Ulan replied, her eyes flicking between them. “But yes, I will do all the talking. I don’t need any of your input. Does being quiet cost extra?” 

The last part of that question was directed at him, and he cocked his helmet at her. “No. Makes my life easier.”

Ulan was right about one thing—she wasn’t cheap, and given how often he encountered people unwilling to pay for services rendered, it was enough to make him dislike her slightly less. 

Very, very slightly.

On top of the walker, she would give them an extra eight thousand credits for his work. It was a good paying job if all he had to do was stand there and look dangerous for an hour or two, but he—like Ulan—was also not an idiot. 

“How wonderful,” she said then. “Perhaps you should practice personally what you do professionally.”

He exchanged a disbelieving look with Omera, who couldn’t help a small, silent laugh. It helped ease his temper, so he said nothing to the woman.

“And you’re alright with me killing them if they don’t… cooperate?”

She waved a hand in the air. “Gun them down.”

“Anything off limits?”

Ulan’s brows shot up. “Such as?”

“Drawing first,” he replied. “Aston enshrines the right to self-defense like most planets in the Outer Rim. As long as I don’t shoot first, you can’t be charged with murder. And if there’s any collateral you want to avoid—like property destruction—you need to let me know.”

“Ah,” she replied, drawing the syllable out. He saw a flash in her eyes—not quite respect, but something more positive than outright disdain. “I see the Mandalorian reputation is not entirely unwarranted.”

Her musing wasn’t all that productive, and he his patience had long since waned, so he pressed on. “Are the execs off limits?” He knew the answer to that, of course. Killing them was the entire reason she’d hired them in the first place, even if she wouldn’t admit to that. But he still had to ask.

“As long as they pull the first punch, do whatever the hell you want,” she said, as he’d expected, but then her eyes narrowed. “Although….”

He glanced at Omera. “What?” 

“You have some squabble with their Mando, yes?”

He stopped himself from correcting her. “It won’t affect the job.”

“I’m happy to hear that. But whatever sectarian warfare bullshit feud you may have going on, it’s at the bottom of the priority list. I’m hiring you to keep me alive.”

“I got it,” he replied shortly, stepping away from the table to roll his shoulders. “Anything else?”

Omera tipped her head. “You really think you can convince your direct competition to, what? Dismantle their business after one conversation?”

“No,” Ulan replied, starting a fresh glass of wine. “I just want them to move their business far away from Aston. I’m willing to buy their lot for a reasonable price.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I’ll have another conversation with them,” she said, as if the answer was obvious. “We’ve been through this.”

“Just want to be clear on what’s going down,” Omera murmured.

He hated the tiptoeing. They were all here for one purpose and one purpose only—to gun down a financial threat to her business. Ulan just had to antagonise them enough for them to open fire, which, judging by the several hours he’d known the woman, would not be a difficult task for her. 

“Put on your scary faces, keep your gun in sight, and it’ll be fine,” Ulan said with a smile. “We can go for drinks after. You people drink, right?” she asked Din.

“When appropriate,” he replied, and Ulan found that hilarious for some reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Classes have started up for me again, so updates for this fic moving forward will likely be slower. I'm still aiming for about one chapter a week, but we'll see how that goes. Cheers!


	14. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has a choice to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey homies. Apologies for the slow update - school has taken over my life again and this chapter was an especially difficult one to write. Thank you so, so, so much again for all the lovely comments and messages you've sent me - they genuinely help keep me motivated!
> 
> Also just a note that there's gonna be some mild gore in this chapter. Heavier than what we see in the show since lmao disney, but it won't be GoT levels or anything like that.

The air in the yard was thin and dry, enough to irritate the back of his throat. Aston’s setting sun cast everything in a grey-honey hue that made the stacks of ferrous scrap around them shine with a dull jaundice. It was exceedingly unpleasant.

He shifted his weight to his other foot and let out a sigh. The Alliance Scrapping Yards had closed early in anticipation of their meeting, so they were the only ones standing around the warehouse. A single guard had met them at the gate and told them to wait here with her, but aside from that, he hadn’t seen anyone else. He had no doubt they were being watched, of course, but it was eerily still; the only real noise came from the faint creaks and groans of the metal around them, being softly buffeted by the evening wind. Rather than hulking mountains, though, they were stacked and packaged in neat, rectangular rows. It would be easy to get lost in a place like this.

“You’ve worked security jobs before?” Omera asked him quietly, scuffing her heel into the dirt. Ulan was having a lively chat with the guard behind them, smoking a cigarra and looking more relaxed than she had any right to be. Had he not known better, he would’ve taken her for the owner of this place. 

“Bodyguard work, a few times,” he replied to Omera, nodding. “Was hired once to watch over a nobleman's son getting drunk in a cantina the whole night. He refused his father’s guards, so he had me watch him instead.”

“That sounds… obnoxious,” she concluded, her mouth twitching. 

“Easy enough job,” he said with a shrug. “His father paid well. Kid was an asshole, though.”

“Somehow I doubt this’ll be the same,” she murmured, low enough that Ulan couldn’t hear from behind them.

He tipped his head. “It’ll be fine.”

“It’ll be fine,” she repeated back with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. 

Ulan had lent Omera some basic body armour for the job, and it added a decent amount of bulk over her jumpsuit. Combined with her rifle and a harsh expression he knew wasn’t just for show, she looked every bit the part of a hired gunman. Still, there was a tense undercurrent in the way she held herself, and he shared her anxiety.

“At least the execs are cushy old men,” Omera said. She was repeating what they’d both heard already, but her unease made her talkative, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to listen to her speak. “Soft types from the Inner Rim.”

“Explains their paranoia,” he replied, looking around the yard. 

“I mean, if I were meeting with Ulan….” She let the rest of the thought hang in the air, but he didn’t need her to finish it.

He smiled. “You’d bring a bodyguard?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re my pilot, not my bodyguard.”

“More like agitator,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder at Ulan. She was asking the guard about her mother’s health, the tip of her cigarra glowing bright orange with each pull. “You have much more patience for her than I do.”

“Years of experience,” she told him. “And for all their differences, Rishan was still very much her brother. He could be just as stubborn.”

“Hopefully less petty.”

“Yes,” she whispered fondly. “Not mean, just—tenacious.”

“Sounds like Winta.”

She laughed, and some of the tension drained from her shoulders. “She asked me to buy her something ‘cool’ while we were out, by the way. I put it on the list.”

“They probably have that in the market somewhere,” he said dryly.

She smiled. “I’m sure. I’m less confident they’ll have bassinets and baby clothes, though.”

He cocked his helmet. “For Winta?”

“For your boy,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Your ship isn’t exactly a nursery.”

“I’ll figure that out,” he replied, glancing towards the entrance to the yards. Still no sign of the execs.

“You won’t need to,” she told him, and he looked back at her. “You’re standing next to someone who’s cared for a child before, as it happens.”

“You want to go shopping for baby supplies,” he stated.

“After we get everything else, yeah,” she said, smiling. “If that so pleases you.”

“It does,” he replied, smiling back. “Could use your expertise.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled with warmth. “It’s a date, then.”

Ulan cleared her throat and they turned. The guard she’d been speaking with earlier was at the hangar doors, shoving one open just enough to slip inside before closing it again. She took a long pull of her cigarra before walking up to them, flicking ash to the ground. 

“Having fun?” she asked.

“We’re paying attention,” he said, answering the actual question she was asking. 

“And you look like you’re having a blast while doing it,” she drawled, passing a critical look between them. “But I’m not paying you to stand here and flirt.” 

He didn’t bother telling her she’d been doing the exact same thing, knowing by now how well that would go over. But Omera raised an incredulous brow, and Ulan gave an impatient snort.

“Don’t be self-righteous. The girl who brought us in worked for me a number of times before. This place is apparently contracting local forces from the security office downtown for protection. Most of them I’m familiar with.”

“She gave you all of that in a ten minute conversation?” Omera asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Chit-chat, when applied in productive contexts, yields results.” 

He ignored the barb. “That works in our favour, then.” 

“These people are invasive,” she muttered, sobering. “Consuming local resources, scaffolding off the infrastructure. They don’t belong here, and Aston’s ecosystem is going to swallow them whole.”

He was saved from pointing out that Ulan herself was currently the biggest threat to their lives, not Aston, when the hangar door groaned behind them. Ulan turned, and they all watched it slowly fold open, the double doors creaking heavily on their hinges as they swung inwards. 

He took a cautious step forward. The inside of the warehouse was lit by a combination of the rapidly setting sun filtering through its windows and massive overhead swing lights flooding the hangar. It was well stocked with haulage bins and cargo containers, neatly stacked against the walls of the warehouse and a stark contrast to the dug-in haphazard sprawl that was Ulan’s own yard.

Most importantly, standing inside were the three execs, along with a bodyguard each—and the  _ hut’uun. _ At least Ulan had been right about their numbers.

“Welcome!” The middle one called, a man well into his sixties and dressed far too formally to be standing in a scrapping warehouse. “Please, come inside.”

Ulan jerked her head and they followed after, flanking on either side. As soon as they stepped far enough into the warehouse to clear the doors, they began to swing closed, shutting behind them with a decisive thud that cut off a considerable stream of yellow sunlight. 

“Now,” the middle one spoke again, “before we begin, I ask that you place your weapons at the middling.” He nodded, indicating the thirty paces of no-man’s land between them. 

Ulan gave a short, sharp laugh. “No.”

“Ah, but we shall do the same.” He gestured to the end of his staggered line, to the  _ hut’uun. _ “And we both have a Mando, it seems, and so we will each be keeping a weapon at our sides.”

Ulan was still. From this angle he couldn’t see her face, but her posture was tense with annoyance. 

He kept his eyes on the  _ hut’uun. _ He’d recognised Din, judging by his defensive posture, and he was clearly not pleased about it. Getting a second look at him now, it was obvious that he was not a real  _ Mando’ad.  _ His armour was in a disgraceful state of disrepair, the damage caused by neglect rather than battle. Beskar in the hands of those ignorant of its upkeep was easy to spot, and he wondered how he’d ever been fooled, even briefly, into believing the man standing before him was anything more than a coward wearing the stolen soul of a  _ vod. _

He rolled his shoulders, the movement rattling his own beskar. 

No one had moved yet. All three of the execs wore careful, polite smiles, a match to their careful, polite outfits. The distinction between them and Ulan could not have been more clear, right down to the fact that they themselves bore no visible arms. He had no doubt they’d all killed their fair share of people, but only through the orders of others. Even their hands looked soft—no calluses, no scars.

Surrendering their weapons would be a fatal mistake, and Ulan had surely made the same calculus.

“I will keep all weapons at my side,” Ulan called back. 

“Mutually assured destruction is a difficult elephant to speak around,” the middle lamented. “And I’m quite uncomfortable with—”

“It’s not up for debate.” She shifted her weight and the rifle hanging from her neck strap clattered faintly against her body armour. It made their guards twitch, but no one reached for their weapons. Yet.

“This is already far too tense,” the one to the left said with a sigh. “Perhaps introductions will ease tensions. I am Cassin, this—” She gestured to the man who’d spoken before, “is Tate, and our third partner is Deval. Our own Mando is head of security here, Henric Hahn.”

The  _ hut’uun _ finally moved, nodding at the three of them. “Welcome,” he said. The modulator on his helmet was tinny and crackled with the sound of a worn-out filter, something Din hadn’t picked up on when they’d first met in the busy cacophony of the maidan. 

_ “Su cuy’gar,”  _ Din called back, staring directly at Henric.

“Ah!” Tate exclaimed. “That is Mando’a, is it not? A beautiful language. It’s quite the surprise that Ulan has come into the services of a Mandalorian. I was under the impression that Hahn was the only one on Aston. Perhaps you will find much to discuss with him after this meeting, mister….”

“Mando,” he supplied, keeping his visor pointed to Henric. “We don’t give out our names to strangers.”

The polite smile on Tate’s face faltered at his harsh tone, but he recovered quickly, looking to Ulan. “And who is your other companion?”

“Omera,” Ulan said flatly, before Omera could speak. “Enough niceties.”

The guards were on edge. Cassin’s lack of introduction on their part made it clear they were there only to act as a deterrent to direct conflict. Their weapons were brand new, and judging by the lack of carbon around the barrels, they hadn’t even been fired yet. He wondered if that display of wealth was supposed to be intimidating.

Henric’s dual blasters were similarly minted, clashing with his derelict armour. Din was sure the battered look impressed the execs, who were not familiar enough with Mandalorians to know that the only damage to their beskar worthy of any pride was that sustained in a fight. It was a decent trick, but it meant his status as a  _ Mando’ad _ was a paper tiger. He almost found himself disappointed—he’d been itching for a real fight.

“Now that we are all acquainted,” Tate said, bringing the conversation back to him. “There’s no need to keep weapons in the conversation.”

“Non-negotiable,” Ulan said. She was calm, but her words were iron. 

“A necessary concession, I’m afraid, of this is to continue diplomatically. I’m aware that business is conducted differently on the frontier, but—”

“A concession has already been made,” she interrupted him. “We’re meeting on your land, in your company. This will be yours, and you will make it.”

“Or you could leave,” Deval suggested, still polite, still smiling. “This meeting is for your benefit.”

Ulan laughed. “If you believe that, you’re more stupid than I thought.”

While they spoke, he marked each exec on his HUD, along with the largest of their three guards. He only had four whistling birds left, and while it was poor strategic form to target the execs over their armed counterparts, Ulan had been crystal clear about how important they were. Letting any of them get away meant pissing her off and potentially extending their contract, and he had no intentions of doing either. 

He also would not waste any on Henric. To kill the man with anything but his own hands would be a dishonour to whichever  _ vod  _ they’d stolen that armour from.

“... place such as this would foster productive discussion,” he heard Cassin say. Din took a deep breath. He had to focus. “But as a gesture of trust on our part, I feel it’s more than fair to allow you to keep your arms, as we shall keep ours. I hope you don’t misabuse that trust. Do we not agree?”

The other two execs shifted, clearly uncomfortable with the decision, but an open argument between the three of them would undermine their position. When they both nodded reluctantly, Cassin smiled more brightly. “I’m glad we understand each other, then.”

Ulan snorted, obviously amused by the implication that this was anyone’s decision but her own, and it was enough to make the execs visibly uncomfortable. “Great.”

Tate tilted his head, his pleasant expression looking a touch forced now. “We welcome you to share your concerns with us then, Ulan.”

“NR goods are off-limits,” she said plainly, impatiently, making it clear that their preamble had been a waste of time. “Aston’s been that way for years, and for good reason.”

“There are no legal sanctions against the recycling of New Republic craft on Aston,” Deval responded. None of their polite, stiff smiles moved an inch, giving the impression of their words being forced through their teeth. He wasn’t sure if that was the intention or not. “Unless you have some secret information I’m not privy to.”

“Any mention of the New Republic in independent colonial policy requires external investigation from their offices,” Ulan said. “Which is what we want to avoid.”

“‘We’?” Tate repeated. “You have a close relationship with Aston’s government, then?”

He was standing slightly behind Ulan, so he couldn’t see her grin, but it carried easily on her words. “We as in you and I, friend.”

“I fail to see how falling under the purview of the New Republic a shared concern of ours,” Deval said. “We welcome the structure of a just government.”

“The fairness of the NR isn’t what is up for discussion,” Ulan replied. “Your business is.”

“I think what my friend here means to say is that we are sympathetic to your concerns, Ulan,” Cassin cut in. “And that our point of disagreement is ideological, not business-related.”

“You can nitpick specifics all day, but it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t stay on Aston.”

He didn’t dare glance at Omera. The conversation between Ulan and the execs may have become marginally more cordial, but the substance behind their words was inescapably vile, and it permeated the air. 

A small blip appeared in the corner of his HUD, and his eyes went wide when he read the hail. It was an invitation to a private comm channel from the  _ hut’uun. _ A glance in his direction only confirmed that Henric was avoiding direct eye contact.

He didn’t move or give any indication he’d seen it as he considered the request. Ulan had been clear about their lack of participation in the talks, and he was more than happy to remain disengaged. This, though, was something else.

When he accepted the handshake protocol, static buzzed inside his helmet. “Mando,” Henric greeted, sounding almost as calm and polite as the perfumed execs he was standing beside.

He muted his external mic and clenched his jaw. “What do you want?”

“A few things. But first, to come to an understanding,” Henric replied. “It seems I’ve offended you in some way. I’d like to rectify that.”

“Not me,” he spat, making sure he gave nothing away in his body language. “And offence is an understatement.”

“Share your worries with me, then, so I can correct this misstep.” He chuckled, like they were discussing the weather. “I suspect you have an ability for diplomacy that your employer lacks.”

“I know you’re not a Mandalorian,” he said in a low voice, and saw Henric twitch with the admission, as if that were a surprise. It made him furious. “And you’re going to—”

He took a breath, stopping himself. His blood was boiling already, and it took every shred of discipline in him not to rush Henric right now. He couldn’t draw first.

“Or perhaps not,” Henric amended. “That’s quite the claim. I wear the armour, same as you.”

He gripped his belt with his firing hand so he wouldn’t reach for his gun.  _ “Jorhaa’ Mando’a, hut’uun,”  _ he spat, suppressing an enraged tremor. When Henric hesitated, he let out a short, bitter laugh. “Or anything else besides that, and maybe I’ll believe you. You don’t even know what that means, do you?  _ Laandur.” _

“Listen,” Henric said, sounding like he was trying to control his own temper. “You’re clearly angry, so I’ll skip the pleasantries. I’m well aware of what your employer is capable of, and I wish to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Whatever she’s paying you, we can compensate you far more fairly—provide you demonstrate your loyalty.”

“You don’t give me orders.” He shifted restlessly, unable to help himself. “And don’t make me listen to you beg for your own life. It’s disgusting.”

“I just want this to end in both our favours,” Henric tried again. “I’m sure a man in your position can empathise.”

He froze. “Excuse me?”

“It’s a dangerous time to be a Mandalorian right now,” Henric explained. “You’ve heard the rumours about the runaway from Nevarro, no? Lots of people after that one, and any Mando unlucky enough to be spotted in public gets caught in the crossfire. I’ve been questioned on more than one occasion myself, but luckily I have quite the alibi.” His helmet tipped subtly to the execs beside him.

He said nothing to that. He’d long since tuned out of the conversation between Ulan and the execs, but he was too furious to feel guilty about it right now.

Henric’s voice came though more confident now, emboldened by Din’s lack of response. “So let’s not cause a scene, shall we?”

“Do not threaten me,  _ hut’uun.” _

“Oh no, it’s a counter-offer. Their negotiations are in deadlock. No one wants to compromise, and for good reason, and so it falls to us to be the reasonable ones.”

“There is no us,” he snarled. “There is only me.”

“And your fellow hired gun,” Henric replied. Din didn’t look at Omera. “You two seem friendly. We can protect her, too. Just give me the word.”

“Be very, very careful.”

“Or what?” Henric laughed. “You’ll shoot me?”

He was either going to pull his gun on the man or end the conversation, so he ended the private channel instance and looked back to Ulan. In the interim, she’d become significantly more agitated. He wished he could pull Omera aside to catch him up; her expression remained stony and detached, giving nothing away.

“... the way to reach any kind of synthesis in this discussion,” Deval was saying. “A merger would work in both our favours.”

“Am I not making myself clear?” Ulan looked between the three of them. “These are my terms. You will leave Aston, you will not return, and you will conduct no business in this sector, either directly or through proxies.”

“An untenable solution to this conflict,” Cassin responded. “But a wonderful opening bid to negotiations!”

He could see that Ulan was not used to being dismissed. Her rage up until that point had been an undertow, no less deadly for its secrecy but hitherto unleashed on her competitors.

“I am not,” she said slowly, “leaving this building until those terms are met.”

“Or we remove you,” Deval replied. Of the three, he was the only one who made no attempt to conceal his scorn. “You do not get to make threats in this place, and I grow tired of your disrespect.”

The guards shifted with unspent adrenaline; Omera held firm beside him, her face drawn in a severe rictus; Ulan was practically vibrating with rage; and his eyes fell to Henric.

The  _ hut’uun _ had been keen on avoiding eye contact up to this point, but now his faceplate bore into Din’s, and a new hail appeared on his HUD, blinking desperately. He dismissed it and twitched his hand by his holster, being careful not to brush the handle of his gun, and Henric took the bait. 

Both of his sidearms flipped into his grip as he drew them out, and Din flicked his vambrace barrel open.

* * *

Chaos exploded in the hangar. The whistling birds quickly found their marks; the execs all burst a spray of gore in a neat line before dropping wetly to the ground, along with the guard he’d marked earlier. The other two were slow to respond, jolted into immobility as they were spattered with blood. 

Ulan and Omera, unburdened by the shock of inexperience, reacted immediately, shouldering their weapons and diving for cover behind the haulage bins. He reached for his own sidearm but didn’t follow them, unwilling to lose sight of Henric. And while he was far quicker on the draw, activating his vambrace had put him at a disadvantage of a few seconds, and that was enough for the  _ hut’uun _ to get a shot in.

They were close enough that both shots staggered him hard, landing him flat on his back and knocking the wind out of him. His breastplate screeched in protest and the smell of spent carbon filled his nose as he struggled to sit up. 

“Din!” Omera yelled beside him, barely heard above the sound of gunfire. The two remaining guards were set upon by Ulan and Omera from their positions behind the haulage bins, too distracted to finish him off. 

“I’m fine,” he rasped, but she couldn’t have heard him. He rolled, sat up, and looked to where Henric was—and saw his retreating back. The taste of blood filled his mouth.

Coughing, he got to his feet and ran after him, past the line of bodies lying in the middle of the warehouse. The other two guards were now also on the ground in a pool of blood, but his HUD alerted him to a door breach on the eastern wall, where more were surely pouring in after hearing the commotion. Ulan was yelling, cursing, screaming at him, but already he could feel his focus funnelling to a fine point, tethered to the  _ hut’uun _ only a few dozen paces away. He couldn’t let him get away.

He pushed himself into a full sprint as he recovered his balance. The shots had given Henric some ground, but he was clearly not used to running in a full suit of beskar—his gait was awkward and clumsy, the armour clattering together with each stride. Even through laboured breathing, Din was gaining on him, and again a hail blinked furiously in the corner of his HUD, one final plea for a negotiation that had long since been settled. 

Henric was making for one of the back doors. Now rapidly closing the distance, Din held out his other vambrace and fired his whipcord at the man. It snagged on his shoulder and dug into the lip of a pauldron, staggering Henric and jarring Din for a moment before he dragged his arm back and pulled Henric directly into him. They collided with a brutal crack of steel and jolted to the ground. He took the landing on his shoulder, hard enough that he had probably just re-injured his back, and he rolled, his legs and arms wrapped around Henric until he had him pinned beneath him. He ripped the guns from his grip and tossed them away, then held him down.

“Stop!” Henric screamed, now using his external mic, hands scrambling against Din’s chest as he pressed him down onto the warehouse floor. “Be reasonable, Mando! We can talk this out!”

He’d heard the same line a thousand times—offers for better pay, appeals to the inalienable right of all beings to individual freedom, even the promise of sexual favours. It was easy to ignore when they were coming from bounties; now it only made him angrier. 

He fumbled Henric’s helmet, ripping it from the man’s head with hands shaking in rage. If there had been even a shred of doubt left in him about Henric’s status as a Mandalorian, it instantly dissolved when the  _ hut’uun _ made no attempt to stop him. 

The helmet clattered to the floor beside them, revealing the soft face of a man who looked comfortably in his late twenties. Fresh from boyhood, then, and not at all what he’d been expecting. 

“Who did you take the beskar from?” he demanded, hands at his throat now, bearing the full weight of his body into his locked arms.

“Dead—dead!” he croaked frantically. “She was dead when I found her! I swear!”

He wanted to ask if he’d burned the body. He wanted to ask how she’d died. He wanted to ask a lot of things, but the image of a fallen  _ Mando’ad,  _ stripped and lying alone, dead in a dark street of Marketsport filled his mind and eyes and mouth and throat until it was all he could know. He could guess the reality of most of it anyway; the only loose end was the man beneath him.

He slammed his weight down again, forcing a strangled yelp from Henric, eyes bugging from his head as his hands clawed at Din’s arms. He removed one from his throat, but only so he could land a blow to the man’s face. His knuckles and handguard both connected with a sickening crunch to the bridge of Henric’s nose, and the cartilage flattened against his fist when he brought it down a second time, and again a third. Blood spattered his visor and Henric’s clawing became more desperate, but it did not diminish the vision of a Mandalorian body desecrated at the end of their life, left unburnt and alone in the world to be picked at by scavengers. Her clan likely did not even know of her death.

“Please—please—”

His fist came down again. Henric’s hips jerked upwards, trying to buck him off, but he was weak and inexperienced, and Din would not have given up his position for anything—not until the man stopped breathing.

_ “Kandosii sa ka’rta, Vode an,”  _ he murmured breathlessly. He’d forgotten how much fist fights like this took out of him. It had been a very, very long time since he’d beaten a man to death, and he was unused to the strain. But the rites had to be said; the  _ Mando’ad _ would get no other funeral.  _ “Coruscanta a'den mhi, Vode an. Bal kote, darasuum kote—” _

The noise of the warehouse popped with sudden clarity inside his helmet, or perhaps it was just his eardrums; everything all at once sounded very close and very loud. The intensity of it jarred him upright, and he looked around, confused by what had fractured his focus. Henric was gasping beneath him; Ulan’s shouting filled the air. The blaster fire had quieted some, but the sounds of fighting still rang throughout the warehouse.

He looked back towards the front of the hangar. Ulan was yelling at the guards breaching the eastern door, shooting warning shots off at them that they immediately traded back. A few had gotten in, all of them dead, but she had a hold of one and was using him as a shield while she negotiated with the others.

Behind her he could see Omera. She had her own pile of bodies around her, but she was hunched over one of them who was stubbornly still alive, and their hands were both grappling with a weapon by her waist. He couldn’t make sense of what they were fighting over—it looked like a hilt without a blade attached. A munitions cartridge?

Henric was struggling beneath him, his breath gurgling and his hands pawing away at Din’s grip. He’d beat his face bloody, but there was still strength in his movements—enough that he shoved Din sideways, breaking the axis of pressure he’d been keeping on Henric’s body. 

He rolled, grip still on the man’s shoulder, eyes still stuck on Omera. Her movements were off, desperate and jerking, despite the superior position she had over the man. Even her expression baffled him; she looked pained and desperate, not angry, not focused.

As Henric rolled to his knees and pried off Din’s hand from his shoulder, he realised what he was seeing. They  _ were _ fighting over a knife, quite ferociously, but the blade had disappeared into Omera’s side. She wasn’t trying to strip the dying guard of his weapons; she was trying to pull herself away from him.

Henric scrambled on the warehouse floor, boots and hands scraping the concrete, and reached for one of his guns. It demanded his attention, and Din turned back to kick it away, hard enough that it slid across the warehouse floor. Blood spewed on the ground as Henric staggered to his feet and swung towards the back exit.

“You! Memphis!” He heard Ulan shout at a guard by the eastern door, fracturing his attention further. The woman had an uncanny ability to cut into his head. “Don’t fucking shoot one more shot at me, or you’ll never work on this fucking planet again!” 

The sound of staggering bootprints to his left; Henric was trying to run and failing, but he was getting away. Din looked back and saw that he’d left the helmet behind. 

He stood up, and it felt very much like he was back by the pond bank, watching the kid force water from his mouth and nose. He fought against gravity to get to his feet and found even more resistance as he moved forward. That same infernal membrane, thick and tensile, slowed his movements to a maddening crawl. The lynchpin of his focus had unbuttoned, recentering itself from Henric to the hilt of the knife Omera had finally freed from the man’s grasp, and it threw everything off-kilter. He walked, but slowly on tilted ground, staggering towards her as she slumped to the floor.

Ulan’s voice continued to ring out in the warehouse as he drew closer, and the blaster fire finally came to a halt as she convinced the guards that abandoning their post was of both immediate and long-term mutual benefit. She was shoving away the guard she’d been holding hostage as he came to the small circle of bodies where Omera had fallen. Even in body armour, she looked incredibly, sickeningly, small on the floor.

She panted out breath as he fell to his knees by her side. As soon as his helmet came into her field of view, she gasped and grabbed for him, but not for support—to get his attention.

“Din—Din—”

His eyes drew to the knife. It was buried in her right side, the hilt sticking out just below her ribs, meaning it may have punctured her liver. A cold trickle ran down the inside of his skull, meeting his spinal cord and ripping through it with a ferocious icy terror. 

“Din,” she gasped again as he slid his arms beneath her shoulders and knees. She was clutching desperately at anything she could find purchase on, and one of her hands wrapped around the lip of his breastplate. “I can’t die,” she told him between sharp, shallow breaths. “Winta—”

“I know—” He shifted her and she cried out, one of her hands going to the hilt. “Don’t—don’t pull it out—”

“I know, I—I can’t leave her, Din—”

“I have to pick you up,” he whispered, and she grabbed for his shoulder.

He hauled her up in one smooth motion, her cry ringing inside his helmet. Keeping the side where the knife was buried pointed up, he pressed her front to his and braced an arm around her back, the other holding her legs. 

Ulan was saying something again, over and over, and it took him a moment to realise she was yelling at them to move.

“Din,” Omera whispered into his shoulder, her voice so pitched it barely sounded like her. 

“It’ll be fine,” he lied, and turned to follow Ulan out.

* * *

Once the rest of the guards in the yard were informed that their current employers were dead and that their future one was making very pointed, very credible threats on their collective livelihoods, they bent and parted beneath the steely chevron of Ulan’s will. Their rearguard from the awaiting landspeeder, who’d managed to breach the gate and kill a few guards before the ceasefire, ran to their side to escort them out, though by this point it was entirely unneeded.

They moved quickly along the short path from the warehouse to the entrance, but it didn’t feel like it; he was aware of every step he took, how unbearably small every stride felt. He kept a hold of Omera and the knuckles of his right hand burned under the weight of her slack body. He stopped himself from readjusting her in his grip; the knife was still in her side, and any jarring movement made her cry out.

Ulan yelled but he didn’t register the words. Her own guards shoved open the entrance gate as they rushed out, making a beeline for the landspeeder.

“Inside,” she said unnecessarily, opening up the back cab and ushering him and Omera in before telling the other guards to find their own way back to her yard. She ran around to the front and slid into the passenger seat as he maneuvered the both of them onto the bench. Omera’s breath came out in shallow, desperate waves, and she clung to him as he settled her body down. He’d barely gotten both of his own feet inside when the landspeeder began to move. 

Ulan was telling the driver to find the nearest medcentre, and then he stopped paying attention to her words altogether as he pressed a hand around the edge of the wound. Omera grabbed his arm, trying to push him away even as she closed her eyes and begged him to keep pressure on it.

“Din,” she tried again, her words now pale and faint. They’d lost their earlier, more manic edge as shock set in, and her hands shook so badly that the only way to keep them stable was to let her clamp them onto his wrists. “Din….”

“It’s okay,” he whispered, then looked over into the front cab at Ulan. “How far?”

“Not far,” she replied. She was watching Omera fumble in the backseat, her jaw clenched hard. For once there was no trace of humour in her face or voice. When her eyes flicked to him, he could see how angry she was. She had the good sense not to yell at him now, but he knew they’d be having a very serious conversation, and very soon. 

He kept as much pressure as he could on Omera’s side as the speeder flew through the streets, but blood still spilled over the bench and soaked the carpet of the cab. Things began to lose focus again; he couldn’t find any spot in the landspeeder to stare at that didn’t quickly grow blurry. His head rang with a sick internal tinnitus that made coherent thoughts impossible to form, and his hand burned at Omera’s side as her blood coated his glove. 

Her face was starkly pale, and the whites of her eyes rolled and twitched as she gasped in breath, but she was conscious, and that was all that mattered right now. He found he could watch the pulse at her throat without his vision fading out, and so he kept his eyes on that merciful pinpoint. She was murmuring something, though all he could catch was the sound of Winta’s name.

Reality whittled down to the smell of copper and Omera shaky and gasping movements in the backseat. He didn’t remember the streets they took or how fast they were going or even what Ulan was saying. The unbidden memory of the morning of their departure from Sorgan filled his head.

At some point, minutes or hours later, they pulled to a harsh stop, and at some point the back door was ripped open and they were being pulled out. 

“Quickly!” Ulan yelled behind him, her hand on his pauldron.

He looked down at Omera, touching her cheek to get her attention. “I’m going to have to move you.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “Okay,” Omera breathed, and she swallowed most of her cries down as he scooped her back up into his arms and ducked the both of them out from the landspeeder. It was awkward, and he was torn between moving quickly and moving gently, but eventually she was holding onto him again and he had her braced against his breastplate and they were running to the front entrance of the clinic.

His body moved for him, and Ulan did all the talking. He followed where nurses pointed, watched mouths move with words he didn’t hear. Omera’s chin was tucked into his neck, her breath blowing up and brushing the cornered insides of his helmet, and that was all he could listen to. It meant she was breathing; it meant she was still alive.

Winding corridors eventually stopped rushing up to meet him as they were ushered into a small room with a tabled bed in the centre of it. There was a tank wrapped beneath it, and he recognised the acrid stench of bacta instantly. 

“Hey!” Ulan’s fingers snapped in front of his face, a tear in the membrane. He looked at her and found her furious face close to his. “They need to strip her. Set her down on the table.”

Gently, gingerly, he laid her down on the bed. She was still holding onto him fiercely, and Ulan pried Omera’s fingers free, putting herself between them. It was then he realised how strong she was—or perhaps how weak  _ he _ was, because it took nothing for her to push him away.

Omera coughed, sending a ripple through him. “Din—”

“Outside,” Ulan ordered as nurses swarmed the table. They were shoved towards the exit, and he couldn’t do anything but comply. 

“She—”

“Has to be prepped for surgery,” Ulan told him flatly, and they stumbled out as the door closed shut behind them.

The resounding clash of its mechanism jolted him back into himself again. They were in a hallway, he was covered in Omera’s blood, and Ulan still had a rifle hanging from her neck strap. People were staring, and she grabbed his shoulder, pulling them back towards the entrance. He was lucid enough to finally resist, but she gave him a warning look and a sharp tug, and he followed after her.

“Not a word,” she hissed to him as they passed the front counter, and anyone in her way very quickly made sure they were not anymore.

When they were finally outside, she brought them to an alcove in the courtyard and shoved him against the wall of the clinic. Stepping away from him, she took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed the heel of her palms to her eyes. She had a fair amount of blood on her too, though none of it seemed to be hers, and despite her even tone, she was shaking,

“Fuck!” Her throat worked as she swallowed, and she pulled her hands away to level a glare at him. “That was just… fuck you, Mando.”

“Job’s—job’s done,” he replied, pressing his back into the wall and trying not to slide down to his knees. He had to stay standing.

“Yeah,” she snorted breathlessly.  _ “Done.” _

He didn’t want to have this conversation right now. He didn’t want to have  _ any _ conversation right now. “Execs are gone and you’re alive.”

“No fucking thanks to you,” she snarled, wiping her hair away from her face. “I told you that Mando wasn’t your concern.”

“He was a threat—”

“Go fuck yourself, he was a threat!” She walked over and stabbed a finger into his bloodied, dirty breastplate. “I hired you to protect me, and the moment a firefight kicks off—one  _ you _ instigated with that  _ fucking  _ Mandalorian—you run off to do I don’t even fucking know what. Omera was my only back-up, and look what fucking happened!”

They were both breathing hard, both shaking, and Ulan drew back into a defensive stance, as if anticipating some counterattack. 

He had none.

She glared at him for a full minute before stepping away and fumbling for her pocket, pulling out another cigarra from a tin and lighting it with a quivering flame. 

They stood in silence in the courtyard. Ulan calmed down as she smoked, and he closed his eyes and tried to focus on anything else besides the smell of blood permanently wedged into his nose. The heavy spatter from Henric was still on his visor, and the light from the sunset filtered red into the inside of his helmet.

“The bacta table,” he finally whispered. “How much is it going to cost?”

She waved a hand. “Twenty-five thousand a day, including everything else.”

He let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sob, and Ulan looked over at him.

“I’ve promised coverage for two days,” she continued. “She’ll live. You can give me back that camtono, and I’ll deduct the rest from our agreement.”

His helmet clanked harshly against the concrete wall as he let it fall back. “You’re only giving us forty-eight total.”

The cigarra rose back up to her lips and the tip flared as she took another pull. “Then I guess you better find some work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna read up more on Mandalorian funeral rites, I highly recommend checking out the wiki [here](https://swtor.fandom.com/wiki/Mandalorian_Death_Ceremony) and [here](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vode_An).
> 
> Also: My initial aim for this fic was about one update a week, but that's not going to be tenable for the next few months at least, so I can't promise when the next update will be. thank you again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


	15. I'm Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some debts cannot be repaid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! Super sorry for the long wait.

For a very long time it drove him mad that the only memory he had of his mother was about a silly parable she’d told him. He’d heard it dozens of times from dozens of people since then, and he’d been as petulantly dismissive of them as he had her. It was the story of a crofter who always walked behind his plow, doomed to tamp down the dirt he so tirelessly worked to till. An obvious fool, he’d contended, so obvious that the moral lesson was surely a pre-reflexive one. To even state it was to weaken the base logic of avoiding one’s own self-sabotage. 

_ Couldn’t he see what he was doing?  _ He’d asked his mother the moment she’d finished the story.

_ Not if he never looks down,  _ she’d replied, a response he’d never been happy with.

_ He must have been doing it on purpose,  _ he reasoned then.  _ There’s no way he didn’t know. _

And that was always the most clarifying part of the memory—the warm smile she’d given him, patient and knowing, as if she’d anticipated his reaction. As if, perhaps, he’d missed some crucial part of the story in the precise way she’d expected him to.

_ Does it make a difference whether he knew or not?  _ she’d asked of him.

_ Yes!  _ He’d insisted.  _ Yes, it does. If he didn’t know, I could point it out to him and he’d stop. _

_ But he’s done it this way his entire life,  _ his mother informed him.  _ It’s hard to change habits, even bad ones. _

He’d responded then by saying that the man was a terrible farmer who didn’t deserve to work the lands he lived on, and his mother had laughed. The sound of it had long since faded from memory, but he still remembered the way her eyes had crinkled and her mouth had drawn wide in a smile.

The ghost of it was dogging him now.

He stared up at the cellar ceiling, working up the energy needed to get off the stone floor. The smell of steel and copper filled his nose and sweat stung his eyes. He didn’t remember fading out, or fading back in either, but he hadn’t been aware of the ceiling or the foul interior of his helmet for a while and now, unfortunately, he was once again.

He coughed out a breath and rolled onto his side, giving himself the leverage to brace his arms beneath his body. The ground under him was sticky with drying blood, and with a dull kind of alarm he paused to frown down at it. 

Deliberating, he eventually decided that it likely wasn’t his, mostly on the grounds that he’d be dead if it were. He glanced around the cellar and found the three men he’d killed earlier. The floor was slanted, and their blood had trickled down to pool where he’d been laying. Which meant he’d probably fallen asleep for an hour at least, judging by the amount—perhaps longer. 

Not good.

Struggling to sit up onto his knees, he crawled over to their bodies and began to pat down the closest one. He wasn’t expecting to find much, or even anything at all; chart-drifters squatting in the building of a local business were small game. So small, in fact, that he didn’t generally brush up against these types anymore. They’d been easy kills, even as exhausted as he was, and he ignored how young they looked as he turned out their pockets.

Between the three of them were two hundred and twelve credits, a half-eaten ration bar, and a full brick blaster cartridge. Their sidearms were in rough shape, but salvageable as scrap if nothing else. He tucked away the credits, guns and munitions before sitting back and tipping his helmet up enough to finish off the bar. Freeze-sealed rations were barely palatable when freshly opened, and being left out of the package for at least a day hadn’t improved the taste or texture. But he wouldn’t pass up a free meal—not right now.

He was only a few bites in when he heard the sound of the store’s front door opening, followed by a string of foul curses. Letting his helmet drop back down, he tucked the stale bar away in a pocket and listened as footsteps approached the door to the cellar. It was probably the merchant, but in case it wasn’t, he unholstered his blaster and let it rest flat against his thigh as he sat and waited for the man to approach. A younger, more resilient version of himself would’ve gotten up and found cover.

Footsteps drew closer, cautious and heavy. The cellar door opened and a boot appeared on the top step. Another one followed after, and then the merchant ducked down to peer into the dark basement, rifle aimed into the room.

“Hello?”

“It’s clear,” he reported, and the man jumped at his voice before squinting over at Din.

“And you’re just sitting down here?” he asked, taking the rest of the stairs down and clicking on the light. Harsh fluorescent flooded the room, making Din wince before his visor properly polarised. With the cellar now lit, the reality of the damage the drifters had caused was laid bare, and their fight certainly hadn’t helped matters; stocks were pillaged, containers were smashed, and refuse littered the floor—along with a significant amount of blood.

The merchant took all of this in, eyes progressively bugging further and further out of their sockets, before falling incredulously to Din. “What did you do?”

“The job,” he replied. “Damage was done by the time I got here.”

“This is—” The man walked over and wrapped his hand around the support strut of a shelving unit that had been toppled, shaking his head at the spices spilled out onto the floor. “This is unbelievable.”

Din watched him make a circuit around the cellar, giving a wide berth to the bodies near the centre of the room. The merchant made his disapproval clear through  _ tsking _ and gasping and swearing under his breath as he took in the full extent of the damage. He hoped the man would just get on with it. He didn’t want to be here any longer than he needed to.

Once the merchant completed the tour of his destroyed storage room, he rounded back to Din. “Why did you take so long?” 

“It was a hard fight,” he lied, and nodded to the pool of coagulating blood on the tiled floor as evidence. 

His eyes narrowed, unconvinced. “It took you three hours to fight these—these brigands?”

Din winced at the man’s words. He’d been down here for three hours?

When he didn’t respond, the man’s suspicious frown deepened. “And you were just, what? Sitting down here when I came in? Having a rest?”

“Job’s done,” he replied simply, not taking the bait.

“Yes, as you’ve said.” The merchant gave another shake of his head as he nudged a destroyed storage box with his foot. “This is going to cost me thousands.”

He took a centering breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Non-Guild contract work was gruelling for a litany of reasons, but this was always—always—the worst part. No one ever wanted to pay, and they always found a reason why.

Which meant he needed to leave, and soon. As he struggled to his feet, the merchant made more noise about how dissatisfied he was with all of this. Ignoring him, he cleared his throat to get the man’s attention and held out his hand.

“Hold on a minute,” the merchant said, putting his hands on his hips. “I hired you to get rid of these men trespassing on my property—”

“Which I’ve done.” 

“And destroyed my stores in the process!”

He didn’t let his hand drop. “It was like this when I arrived—”

“You spent a great deal of time down here,” the merchant interrupted him, and his eyes widened as he realised he’d just stumbled upon what he certainly thought was a very good line of argument. “More than was necessary to do the job.”

“I spent all the time down here I needed to,” he replied. “Now pay up.”

“What were you doing down here for so long?” the man demanded. “I shouldn’t have had to come down here! I could’ve gotten hurt!”

He said nothing. 

“No response,” the man scoffed after a moment. “Outrageous. This is unacceptable—”

He grabbed the man’s shirtsleeve. Not hard, but the merchant went very still as the words died in his throat. His old rifle was still in his hand, but it was useless this close up.

“I need that money,” Din told him, very slowly. “Pay up.”

* * *

The streets of Marketsport were slick with a now seemingly permanent rain. The last two days had seen a steady downpour, creating an unfortunate sludge of garbage and dirt that settled into every chip and crevasse of sidewalk. 

He was grateful for it. In lieu of cleaning his gear, a process that took precious hours to accomplish, the rain sloughed off the worst of the grime coating his armour. It almost made up for how much heavier his bodysuit became when soaked through with water.

He kept to the sideways, avoiding main streets and watching for trackers. They’d been here for too long; people were starting to recognise him, and yesterday he’d been stopped by a man bearing the Guild’s seal. It was a waste of both his time and energy to kill people without getting paid for it, and he desperately could not afford any distractions right now. Had he been on his own on Aston, the better play would be to set course for a random vector, blacklist this sector of space for any future work, and hope the cost of hunting him down would be so much more expensive than his remaining debt that Ulan wouldn’t bother chasing him.

But he wasn’t alone.

The job with the merchant had been in the north-western end of the city, so it was a long trek back to the hospital. His options were to move quietly or move quickly, so he settled for the former and decided that he’d find a nice hovel to sleep in after he checked in on Omera. Roughing it wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t risk being spotted at the starport just for the luxury of sleeping in his ship.

As he walked, he tallied up the money he’d gotten from working. Finding jobs on Aston had been easier than he’d expected it to be; there was no Guild presence on the planet, and that worked in his favour. The local security office was woefully understaffed to deal with the problems of a large port city, and in that vacuum was a great deal of lucrative problems in need of solving. The fact that his clients were getting Guild work for non-Guild pay was a privilege that seemed to fly over most of their heads, but the money was still decent—after it was coerced out of them.

So he’d managed to scrounge up a decent sum. He still owed Ulan twelve hundred of that, but he’d give her the rest when they were ready to leave. The only reason she hadn’t killed him outright or disposed of Omera was the money, if his interactions with her over the past forty-eight hours were any indication. It was his only bargaining chip, and he wasn’t about to give it up until they had an exit plan.

It took him an hour to reach the hospital. The last fifteen minutes of his walk were particularly brutal, given that the streets widened the closer he got, and his exhaustion was starting to catch up with him. He needed to find a proper meal, and he needed to sleep for about ten hours. Later, he promised himself. Soon.

He earned several stares as he crossed the hospital’s courtyard, all of which he ignored. Even through the rain, the battle was well-worn on his armour, and he was sure he looked awful. At least it kept anyone from getting in his way.

Slipping into the waiting room, he went to the reception desk and tapped his knuckles on the linoleum counter to get the admin droid’s attention.

“Room four-F-nine,” he told it. “Intensive care wing. I need access.”

“Identification,” the droid hummed.

“I’m the financier’s proxy,” he replied, pulling the chit Ulan had given him from his pocket and sliding it to the droid. “She’s given me permission to access the room.”

The droid took the chit, stared at it for a moment, and then slid it back. Tapping at old mechanical keys, it scanned the holo in front of it before giving a contrary beep.

“That room has been cleared. The patient was discharged two hours four minutes ago.”

“What?” He leaned forward to read off the time on the droid’s screen. The chrono in his HUD was either wrong, or he had much larger problems to contend with. “Why? By who? She was supposed to be here until the end of the day.”

“The patient has been discharged,” the droid repeated. “Your access permissions have therefore expired. I cannot give you more information than—”

He shoved away from the desk and walked straight for the door again, heart throbbing in his throat. If he hadn’t fallen asleep in the cellar, he would’ve gotten here on time.

* * *

She woke to the smell of musty corduroy.

A short, sharp cough forced itself out of her lungs, and she heaved as she tried to get her bearings. The world’s axis was tilted at an odd angle—everything was sideways, oblique. The light in the room was off, glaring into her left eye. She was laying down, she realised. 

Omera fumbled, grabbing for the edge of the bed, and found a cushion instead of a support bar. It took all of her effort to push herself upright, interspersed with dry coughs. Her mouth was full of sour cotton, her head unusually heavy. Her brain offered the explanation that she was waking up after being sedated, but that didn’t account for the smell of the room, the poor lighting, or the fact that she seemed to be sleeping on an old couch and not a hospital bed.

“Hello?” she croaked, and coughed again as the words scraped up her throat. Now upright, she could see there was another source of light, separate from the overhead fixture—a crack in the door on the far wall let in a far more pleasant, far more natural light.

She looked around the room. It was hard to see the corners, but it seemed relatively small—a table with a few chairs scattered around it to her right, a dimmed holo on one of the walls. Blinds completely covered the single window in the room, and a fridge and sink sat next to a smaller door that she guessed led into a bathroom or storage closet. 

Definitely not a hospital room.

“Hello?” she tried again, and heard movement from the other side of the far door. The crack widened, and she shielded her eyes from the light that came pouring in as someone entered the room.

“You’re awake.” It was Ulan.

“Ulan?” Omera rasped. When she heard the door close behind the woman, she let her arm drop from her face. “Where... are we?”

“Apparently,” she said slowly, walking to the table and pulling out a chair, though she didn’t sit down yet. “Having a Mandalorian in your debt is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“What…?” Omera looked around again, leaning against the back of the couch and crossing her arms to combat the chill in the room. “I don’t—we were at a hospital….”

“We were,” Ulan confirmed, not bothering to hide the disdain in her voice.. “But on top of the incident at the Alliance warehouse, the Mandalorian you brought with you failed to mention that he was being hunted by a great many number of people.” She moved to the fridge, opening it and grabbing two bottles from inside the door. “Having him waltz around my scrapyard—and your hospital room—was bad for business.”

A pang of guilt struck her. She hadn’t even thought of Din—she hadn’t been thinking of anyone but herself.

“Where’s D—where is he?”

Ulan shrugged, walking over to Omera and handing her a bottle. “Out working.”

She took it and read the label. Water. With relief she unscrewed the cap and took a small sip. It was so cold it stung her teeth, but it got rid of the horrible fuzzy texture in her mouth.

“He’s alright, then?” she asked, watching Ulan go back to the chair and sit down.

The woman snorted, uncapping her own bottle. “I don’t think you want my opinion on that. You’ll have to ask him.”

“I’m….” Omera looked down, a hand going to her side as a shiver went through her. She hadn’t even thought of her wound until now—it hurt, but it was a dull and distant kind of ache, like an aging bruise.

A thought occurred to her. “How long have I been out?”

“About two days, more or less. They gave you a strong sedative just before I had you released.”

“Ulan—” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “This is—this is a lot.”

Surprisingly, Ulan said nothing to that, not even offering a huff. Omera used the silence to properly get her bearings. Now that her eyes had adjusted and she was fully lucid, she recognised the room as the back half of Ulan’s scrapyard office. She’d never been in this part before, but the floor was the same old tile pattern as it was in the front, and the door was familiar.

_ Two days, _ she repeated to herself. It had taken a moment to sink in. She’d lost two days. They’d be late getting back to Sorgan now, and Winta would surely worry.

She took another slow breath. “You said,” she murmured, licking her lips to wet them. “You said he was—he was working.”

“Yes,” Ulan confirmed. “Hospitals aren’t cheap.”

She flinched at that. “What?”

“You were in there for two days,” Ulan replied. “Under one of their bacta tables. You of all people should be familiar with how costly something like that is.”

Omera’s hands tightened around the water bottle. The reality of the situation came at her in waves, and she dreaded each successive tide more than the last. “Did we—are we indebted to the med centre?”

“Not to them, no,” Ulan corrected her. “Your deal with me covered most of it. I paid the rest. Your Mando is making up the difference—and taking his sweet time with it.”

She closed her eyes as a shudder wracked through her. 

It was all gone. All the weeks of sorting through the walker, planning out meticulously what they’d do with the money, asking the entire village to abandon recouping their harvest so they could have a shot at securing a better future for themselves. All gone now.

She opened her eyes and looked at Ulan. She couldn’t have a breakdown. Not yet.

So she cleared her throat instead. “Thank you,” she whispered to the woman. “This has been—it’s not how we meant things to go, believe me.” She blew out a breath. “And it looks like you’ve been—you’ve taken care of things. So thank you.”

Ulan set her water bottle down on the table. “Thank you for what, specifically?”

The scorn in her tone jolted Omera. “What?”

“Well,” Ulan drawled, “as you said, a lot’s happened. You could thank me for giving you work, for the sale of your scrap, for the loan for the hospital visit, for this—” She indicated the office with a wave of her hand. “For not letting my baser desires get the better of me and leaving you to the whims of that moron you brought with you. So forgive me if I’m not satisfied with vague platitudes.”

Maybe the sedatives weren’t completely out of her system yet. She stared at Ulan, struggling to find something to say.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

Ulan blew out a breath, her patience snapping. “Your Mando nearly cost you your life. He nearly cost  _ me _ my livelihood, and that’s still up in the air. Agreeing to anything with you was one of the worst strategic decisions I’ve ever made, and it’s been awhile since I made the last one.”

Ulan stood up, restless with anger, and walked to the other side of the room. She was so tall her head blocked the overhead light, casting Omera in shadow. It was hard to see the woman’s face from that angle, but the impression of cheekbone and brow cut hard with rage.

“Ulan—”

Her fist connected with the wall, denting the panelling. The movement had been controlled and sharp—and terrifyingly fast. “Do you have  _ any _ idea how much damage the two of you have managed to cause? How much work I’ve had to do to contain this mess?” 

Omera gripped the bottle in her hands. “I didn’t mean for it to go this way—”

Ulan took a step forward, and Omera fell silent. “Neither did I! And yet I made the idiotic mistake of trusting that you’d be shooting straight with me. That I wouldn’t be hiring a Mandalorian that was simultaneously incompetent  _ and _ delinquent. That I wouldn’t have to watch you flirt and giggle and make eyes at each other in the same yard I opened up to you and my brother. But here we are,” she concluded, spreading her arms out. 

Omera said nothing. She couldn’t find anything to say that would make it okay.

And apparently, Ulan didn’t seem keen on waiting for her while she searched for words. “I went against my good sense and humoured you when you walked through that door,” she continued. “Because even after everything else, you are still the mother of Rishan’s child. I continued to go against it even when you had the gall to dote on a man who’s personal vendettas outweighed our safety. I did it because Rishan loved you, but you seemed to have moved on even from that.”

She walked to the door, her hand clenching around the knob, her back now turned from Omera.

“That’s gone now,” Ulan told her. “And that’s not coming back. I have work to do still—messes to clean up. I better not hear another fucking word from you, today or any other day. When your Mando gets back, the both of you are going to get as far away from me as possible. Is that clear?”

Omera’s jaw worked, her hand pressed to her side as her chest heaved with effort. It took her a moment, but the words eventually came out through gritted teeth. “Clear,” she whispered.

“Glad we finally agree on something.”

* * *

She was almost having a nice evening. 

Her day had been spent speaking to people—to the security office, to the Marketsport municipal agent dispatched to investigate why the Alliance yards had been so quiet, to all the new clients she now had to service in the absence of her competitors, and to the company that had leased the ship breaking lot to the execs. And she’d done it all remotely, from the desk in her office, but she wasn’t hiding—Aston’s central government was far too smart to go after her, and they’d wanted the execs gone perhaps even more than she had. The fact that she knew her place in all this was the reason she wasn’t currently having her lands seized or being thrown in prison.

No, she wasn’t a fugitive. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t made some very unfortunate decisions, or that she could walk around in broad daylight as if nothing had happened. Part of knowing her place meant playing the penitent when it was required of her. Holing up until things settled down was in the best interest of everyone, even if it made most of her life inconvenient.

So she was almost having a nice evening, settled at her desk, satisfied with the mental weariness that came from a productive day of work, when her office door was wrenched open by the Mandalorian, barging in without the courtesy of knocking first. She’d made her fair share of enemies in her life, but it had been a long time since the mere sight of a person got her blood jumping. It was almost an exciting bit of novelty.

Almost.

His helmet swivelled to her desk, his chest heaving, though it seemed to be more because he was out of breath. His shooting hand twitched by his belt when he saw her, but he wasn’t stupid enough to settle it on his blaster.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

She leaned back and crossed her arms, betraying nothing aside from a bemused smirk. “Where’s my money?”

“She was supposed to be in there for a full two days,” he replied, pointing a finger to the door, his voice hoarse and thin. He sounded as if he was getting sick—his cloak was heavy and dripping with rain water. “That’s what we’re paying for.”

“That is what  _ I  _ am paying for.  _ You _ are reimbursing me.”

He shook his head, exasperated. “What difference does it—”

“It makes all the difference,” she explained, sitting forward. “It makes all the difference because I’m legally and financially responsible for her, and you failed to mention that on top of everything else, the Bounty Hunter’s Guild has apparently put out a decent ransom on your head.” She tapped a finger on her desk, watching him go still as she spoke. “And if I were a bounty hunter worth my metal, I’d find out what could be so important to a very conspicuous, very valuable Mandalorian to make him hang around a shithole like Marketsport and risk confrontation.”

“No one’s followed me to the hospital,” he cut in, catching her meaning. The words were forceful, but his voice was weak. He seemed to sway where he stood.

“No, but they’ve figured out you’ve been coming here,” she replied. “And the hospital’s an easy jump from that.”

“So where is she?”

“Where’s my money?” she repeated, and his hands balled into fists.

“I’ll give it to you when I see her.”

She laughed. “Oh no, you don’t get to make bargains with me. I ask, you answer.”

He heaved a sigh and reached for his belt, digging around until his hand came away with a meaty pouch of coin. He approached her desk slowly, his boots thudding on the floor and squelching faintly from the mud he hadn’t bothered to wipe off. 

His hand came up and dropped the pouch on her desk, and the contents of it clinked from the impact. She picked it up and pulled the drawstring, opening the mouth of the pouch and sifting through it carefully, counting the coins one by one. 

He crossed his arms impatiently while she made sure the proper amount was there. Ulan could have counted far more slowly if she wanted—and she did—but the desire to finish this business outweighed any petty impulse to piss off the man standing in front of her. The sooner she never saw him or Omera again, the better.

“Looks like it’s all here,” she said finally, closing the pouch and tucking it into one of her drawers. She crossed her hands and looked up at him. The Mandalorian was humming with a pent up rage, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of venting it.

“So?” he asked, looking around. “Where is she?”

“There’s one more item of business to attend to first,” she said slowly, and his shoulders stiffened in anger. 

“What?”

“I’m leaving for the night, and when I come back in the morning, you better not be here. In fact, you’re going to leave Aston immediately,” she explained to him, standing up from her desk. “You’re going to never come near this system again, and if I somehow have the displeasure of ever running into you at a future date, I’m going to kill you.”

He watched her silently for a moment. “Is that all?” 

She smiled, lips pulling back to expose her teeth. “Yes.” Then she turned, glancing at the door to her right. “She’s in the back office. Make sure to lock up when you leave.”

* * *

When she first had recurring dreams of Rishan, they’d only been about the night he died. Her first year on Sorgan had been hellish—her days were spent with the knowledge that every minute for the rest of her life would be lived in the shadow of his absence, and her nights were spent reliving the last time she’d ever seen him. 

That eventually faded. She still thought of him constantly, but about the times when his face hadn’t been contorted in agony. When they’d meet outside the barracks after dark and she’d let him hold her and they’d both marvel at the beauty of being wanted in a place like this. When they’d spent their first weeks with Ulan and neither of them wanted to fully allow themselves to believe they had the rest of their lives to live together now. When she’d gotten pregnant and realised that her life was truly beginning again, that happiness was no longer something to fantasise about. When they’d lie close to each other at night and she was sure her heart would break with love as she watched Rishan twitch and snore in his sleep. It was a more gentle way of grieving, but it was also impossibly more difficult to live through.

And then, at some point, she’d go a whole day without remembering that he’d died. The puncture in her chest never went away, but sometimes she would forget it was there. It scared her at first, but Winta demanded so much of her attention that she didn’t have time to dwell on the terrifying thought of moving on. And when the day turned to a week and then a month, she allowed herself the luxury of being relieved at finally being free of a burden that had almost crushed her completely under its weight. She could live her life for herself and for her daughter, and not for a ghost that would never come back.

And so it had been a while since she’d last dreamt of Rishan. He came to her now softly and quietly, sitting next to her in the camp’s mess hall and pressing his ankle against hers just to feel like neither of them were alone for a few minutes. She even dreamt of his warmth, radiating off him in waves no matter the temperature. 

His head ducked to spy on her own plate, splattered with a grey energy slurry that was less like stew and more like wet concrete. “I think they gave you more than me,” he whispered.

She smiled but didn’t look at him, not wanting to draw too much attention. “You’re the lucky one, then.”

They both sobered as a guard passed, heads down and spoons poised over their bowls. His boot nudged her own again, and she twisted her mouth into a grimace to keep from grinning.

When the guard walked out of earshot, Rishan picked up the small, short ration bar that they always gave out to labourers, breaking a piece off and setting it between them. It was hardly better than slurry, but that wasn’t the point.

Omera risked a glance at his hand. “You keep it,” she whispered to him, head still down. “I know you’re starting a new dig tomorrow.”

“And I’ll faint with worry if I have to wonder if you’ve eaten enough.”

She wanted so badly to look at him. She wanted even more desperately to tell them that he needed to keep himself healthy and alive, because if she had to survive this place without him, the only person who could find something to laugh at every day, she wouldn’t make it through another week.

She tried to find something to say that wouldn’t make her break down in tears when he grabbed her arm and shook her. She finally looked up from her meal and into his blurred features, gone soft with time and absence. 

“Omera,” he said in a voice that wasn’t his, and a jolt of terror went through her. The guards would surely see them touching, and—

“Omera?”

She reached for his hand, confused. He shook her again. “Rishan? What?”

“Omera.”

She jerked and found herself now sideways, the smell of old corduroy filling her nose again. Rishan was gone, replaced by a dim, cold room and a dull flash of steel. She gave into the instinct to shove it away, to fight against whatever was trying to drag out of her own dreams and face the bleak reality that was awaiting her.

Her hands pressed outwards and found a wall of hard, cold metal. It was too dark in the room to see clearly, but the figure moved, letting go of her arm and retreating. The movement unblocked the overhead light, and she finally understood what she was looking at. 

Din was sat back on his haunches in front of the couch, watching her as she struggled to wake up. Her relief at seeing him again died instantly as she saw the state he was in.

Her eyes went wide. “Din?”

He was so battered and scorched that for a moment she mistook the sight for a nightmare—had he not been sitting upright, it would be easy to think he was dead. Everything about him seemed to stand in stark defiance of his continued survival; his armour was so covered in soot and dirt and grime that it no longer shone in the overhead light; his bodysuit had soaked up and then dried several layers of blood and rainwater, making the fabric strain stiffly against his body; and his cloak, which hung pitifully from his shoulders, was scorched and torn in several places. The bandolier strapped to his chest was empty of rifle shells, and his belt was light of munitions. Even the way he sat spoke to a bone-deep exhaustion born of extended battle.

Omera pushed herself up on an elbow, ignoring the protest of her side. It was like a pull or knot in a piece of clothing—stitched closed and mended, but leaving behind a painful pucker. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Din?”

His helmet tipped down. She noticed a spatter of black and brown streaks across his visor, and she had the good sense to know it wasn’t mud. “How—how are you feeling?” His voice came out rasping and thin, as if he were on the verge of a coughing fit.

“I’m—” She sat up fully on the couch, squinting at the unpleasantly yellow overhead light in the room. It made everything sallow, simultaneously too dim and too bright. Her arms wrapped around herself as she seriously considered his question. “I’m alive,” she finally said, deciding that was the closest thing to the truth right now. “You?”

“We need to leave,” was all he told her.

“Where’s Ulan?”

“Gone for the day,” he murmured. “She just left.”

She clenched her jaw and looked over at the far side of the room, at the door that lead into the main office, and swallowed around the lump in her throat.

“The money,” she whispered, looking back at him. “It’s all gone.”

He’d gone so still she wasn’t sure he was breathing. She hadn’t asked a question, but he answered her anyway. “Yes.”

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Pressure grew behind her eyes but the tears didn’t come—she was too weary for that. She’d let those waves overtake her earlier, after her conversation with Ulan, and now she was too hollowed out to find anymore grief.

“I have about eight thousand left over,” Din said quietly. “From hunts. It’s not—it’s not what she was going to give us, but it’ll get us to Scas-II. They have a cheap market there.”

Omer forced herself to look at him. His voice sounded off, even on top of how hoarse he was. It was pitched higher than she was used to, and his words wobbled with the effort of speaking. He sounded hollow, too.

“Ulan told me you’ve been working.” She couldn’t offer a smile, but her mouth twitched with the ghost of one. 

He only nodded at that.

The longer she was awake, the more she remembered. The pit of her stomach felt like it was slowly eating itself with each successive dose of reality. She hated this couch and this room and this planet with every atom in her body, but she wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep for a long time.

“Omera,” he murmured, the modulation of his helmet crackling, and she met his gaze again. His chest heaved with effort, his hands fists where they rested on his thighs, and she realised she couldn’t just avoid reality, no matter how badly she wanted to—that there were other people within it that still needed her. 

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered, hoping he believed her, hoping she could somehow believe it too. 

He crumpled under the weight of her words, his head bowing and his shoulders shaking. He rocked where he knelt, his breath escaping in wrenching gasps, and she realised that he’d just let out a sob.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, shaking again as he tried to get the words out. “Omera, I’m so sorry—”

She slid off of the couch, carefully kneeling on the floor in front of him, and reached for his arm. He resisted, pushing her away, a half-formed protest about how filthy he was barely escaping his mouth, but there was no strength behind it. When she reached for him again, he didn’t fight her, and she pulled him in close to herself. His hands went to her waist, her leg, bracing like anchors on her body, and a full-throated sob wracked through him. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face to his dirty helmet, and found that she wasn’t entirely hollow yet after all.

His head found solace in her neck as his weight slouched against her body. Broken Mando’a hitched out between his painful breaths, repeating over and over— _ ni ceta, ni ceta, ni ceta. _ She didn’t need to ask what it meant.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, as much to herself as him, her fingers twining up in the stiff and filthy fabric of his cloak. It was still soaked through with rain and musty from the abuse it had endured. Tears stung her eyes and she let out a sob of her own, which only shook him further. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay—”

* * *

He hadn’t meant to break in front of her. 

He shouldn’t have—still shouldn’t be. She was the last person who should be burdened with comforting him, but he didn’t know how else to tell her, how else to get it out of him. He wasn’t repeating himself—each apology given was for something he’d done, drawn from a list so long he could spend three lifetimes making up for his mistakes and still come up short. Whether he said it in Basic or Mando’a, the words were paltry, meaningless, made for infractions that could be resolved with words. What he’d done couldn’t be made up for with an apology. Something else had to be exchanged, something greater.

“I’m sorry,” he told her anyway, over and over, because it was all he had to offer. That, and a measly few thousand credits.

“It’s okay,” she told him back, as if his sins could be wiped away with simple forgiveness.

They weren’t in Ulan’s office for long, despite how infinite each moment felt. The horror of letting himself fall apart in her arms quickly overtook him, closing his throat and cutting off the air to his lungs until he was calm enough to exhale without sobbing. When he pulled his head up from Omera’s shoulder, to look at her face streaked with tears and smudged with dirt from his helmet, he nearly broke again. 

Her eyes darted across his visor, searching for something, saying nothing. She gave a soft, brave smile, sniffling. The both of them were heaving for breath, and condensation dewed on the inside of his helmet. 

“What did—” She paused for breath. “Did Ulan say anything to you before she left?”

He coughed to clear his throat. “Just that she’d kill me if she saw me again.”

Omera huffed, but there was no humour in it. “Sounds like we had similar conversations, then.”

His jaw clenched, anger cutting through the cloud of grief that still clung stubbornly to him. “She spoke to you?”

“Briefly,” she replied. Her words came out bitter. “It was a short discussion.”

“We don’t have to see her again,” he whispered. “Ever again.”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod, sounding distant. As if she were answering someone else.

He looked down at her side, his fingers brushing beneath her ribs. Underneath her suit was a thick padding of bandages, fresh from this afternoon. “How… how is it?” he asked.

She blinked, returning from wherever her thoughts had led her. Her hand rested overtop his, pressing his palm firmly into her side. “It doesn’t hurt, really,” she murmured. “Just a bit of a pull.” Her other hand touched his helmet, making him look up. “It was worth it. The hospital.”

He shook his head. “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

Her smile turned rueful. “Most things shouldn’t happen. It doesn’t stop them from happening anyway.”

What could he say to that? What possible response could he give to her and her unflinching kindness that would make her understand that this was more than just the latest piece of stochastic cruelty in an unordered universe, that there was real blame to lay and people to punish?

He cleared his throat. He didn’t have a response to that, but perhaps he could feed whatever germ of resentment she must surely feel towards him. He almost missed the righteous fury of Ulan—that was far easier to navigate than Omera’s clemency. “Henric,” he said quietly. “I never found him. I didn’t—there wasn’t any time to track him properly. He’s out of the system by now.”

Her brow furrowed, and the hand at his helmet slid to his shoulder, squeezing gently. “I’m sorry, Din,” she whispered. 

He closed his eyes, unable to bare the naked empathy in her eyes. “Don’t. Don’t apologise to me.”

“I’ll do what I please,” she responded, a hint of tired humour creeping into her voice. “But I will ask you for a favour.”

He straightened. “What is it?”

“Take us back to your ship. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

He nodded, helping her up to her feet. It was a struggle enough to stand on his own—helping her was a significant effort, though she seemed to have more strength than he did.

It was still raining outside, and he spent the walk back trying to shield her from the worst of it. His cloak was mostly useless, though he still draped it over her shoulders to keep the wind off of her back. She stuck close to his side, a hand on his arm for support. He suspected she was doing it to steady him more so than to keep herself upright, but he selfishly welcomed the warmth of her proximity. He’d spent the last two days shivering.

They didn’t speak as they walked through the streets of Marketsport, a reprieve he was grateful for. She always managed to get the upper hand when they spoke, always found something to say to him that both clarified and absolved—neither of which he deserved, least of all from her. So instead he snapped his focus on the streets, making sure they weren’t being followed. It was a short walk to the yards, a small mercy for his worn joints.

The relief he felt when they finally entered the lot and spotted the  _ Crest _ hit him centre of mass, threatening to knock him over. He’d locked it down tight and made sure to keep up with the starport fees, but he hadn’t risked going near it since before the job with Ulan. It sat proudly where he’d left it, and in one piece. That was all that mattered.

He helped Omera up the ramp, and she helped him. He shouldn’t have been leaning on her so heavily, but she was steadier than he was, and this last stretch was testing his limits. 

She let out all the breath from her lungs when they entered the ship’s hold, as if she hadn’t properly exhaled since coming to Aston. Her fingers clenched more tightly around his arm, and he stopped to look down at her.

“You said,” she murmured, looking up at him. “You said we were going where? Scas?”

“Scas-II,” he replied. “Remote market colony. I just have to initiate the jump.”

He guided her over to his bunk, where she sat down on the edge. He trailed his hand across the bulkheads of his ship, guiding him towards the ladder.

“I’ll bring our things down,” he said over his shoulder, hanging off a rung. She only gave a tired nod.

He didn’t dare sit down in the pilot seat, fearing he’d fall asleep if he did. It wouldn’t be the first time. Everything in him ached as he started up the engines of the ship, cleared the  _ Crest _ from the starlot roster, and pushed them up into the sky. The angle was awkward, leaning over his chair, and he hung onto the controls as they shook through the turbulence of breaking atmosphere. 

When they were clear, he punched in their new flight vector, and the safety of hyperdrive began to streak past the windows. A calm settled over him as the cockpit lit up with an aurora of blue and white light. They were finally moving forward again. He let out his own shaky exhale of relief. No matter what else, the last two days were over now. 

They’d survived Aston.

He groaned as he straightened up, walking over to their rolled up bedding packs and tossing it down into the hold. Omera’s bag was beside them, but he brought that down with him as he descended the ladder again. When he got to the bottom rung, he looked over to see that Omera had retrieved a ration bar from his storage, and was eating it in small bites from her seat on his bunk.

“Be a while before we reach Scas,” he murmured, keeping his hand on one of the rungs to steady himself. She startled, her eyes opening at the sound of his voice. “We can—we can go through your list, see what we can still get. I can probably find a few jobs there, and—”

“Din.” 

His eyes had drifted to the deck, and he glanced back up at her words. She looked at him with a patient kindness that he didn’t deserve, and set the ration bar down.

“Are you okay?”

A shudder went through him. Another question he had no answer to. The thought of it alone threatened to cleave him open again, and he didn’t think he would be able to pull himself together if he let it.

“I need to….” He glanced over at his shower. “I need to get cleaned up. I can’t sleep like this.”

She nodded, and thankfully didn’t press him on his answer. He’d given her his cloak, filthy as it was, and it had left tracks of dirt and flecks of dried blood on the fabric of her shirt. 

“Let me help you out of your armour, then.”

“You need to get some rest—”

“Din,” she insisted, walking over to meet him by the ladder. She took her pack from him, setting it down against the wall.

“I’m not going to ask you to help me,” he told her.

She shook her head, her chin scrunching to keep down either a laugh or a sob. “You’re a fool,” she breathed.

Her hands grabbed his arms, turning him so she could get at his armour, and to his surprise, he let her. She began to work loose his backplate and pauldrons, and he stripped off his vambraces and cuisses. Her brow was drawn into a permanent frown at the state of his gear, and she seemed perpetually on the verge of asking him what the hell he’d been doing. 

When she removed his backplate and set it down on the deck, her fingers went to his left shoulder. He could feel her hesitation, and he glanced back to see her trace the outline of a crimson patch that had stained his bodysuit.

“It’s not mine,” he assured her.

Her frown didn’t abate. “Looks fresh.”

When he said nothing, she moved on to finish removing his beskar. It was in a horrific state—after he had a proper sleep, he would need to clean and buff it. He wouldn’t disgrace himself further by wearing damaged armour.

Omera settled the pile of his gear in a corner of the hold, wiping her hands off on her pants. She looked up, straight at him, her gaze piercing.

He swallowed, and hoped she heard his words over the gulf between them. “Thank you.”

Her mouth tilted up. “Can you get yourself clean?”

“I’ll figure it out.” He looked down at himself. All of his gear needed a proper wash, but he didn’t have the energy for that right now. 

“I’ll be up in the cockpit then.”

“You don’t—” He glanced at the ladder. “You shouldn’t be climbing.”

She raised a brow. “Neither should you. I could hear you moaning and groaning from down here.”

He felt his face heat. “You don’t need to do that.”

There was an amused twinkle in her eyes. “Are you going to shower in the dark, then?”

“No.” 

Another wave of calm washed over him, its tide so strong this time it even lifted the crushing weight of his debts from his shoulders. It left only a tired resolution in its place.

He felt up for the chin of his helmet, working free the seal that connected it to his suit. His fingers were stiff with cold and exhaustion, but he managed to work it free.

Omera ducked her head when she saw what he was doing, and any atom of doubt left in him at this decision vanished as she turned away. “Din—”

He pulled his helmet off and set it down on a storage crate. “Omera,” he said quietly, like a vow. “Look at me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My schedule is gonna continue to be hectic until april, so updates for this will unfortunately remain sporadic. Thank you so much to everyone who sent me encouraging messages/asks/comments, they genuinely helped to keep me motivated!


	16. Body and Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They take care of each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright lads this is it. There's no way of giving a warning for this without spoiling it, so: this is the smut chapter. If that's not your thing, you can read the first scene and then ctrl + F to "to his surprise" and you'll be taken to the pillow talk section, which is about all there is in terms of substantive plot in this one. 
> 
> As always, [mandoa.org](http://mandoa.org/) will be a good companion, though I've translated almost all the Mando'a Din says for ease of reading. See you all groundside baby !

Her first thought was unkind— _you look terrible._

Much of it was circumstantial. His skin was a canvas of blood, sweat and dirt, disrupted only by the uneven streaks of tears from earlier. The worst of it was a foul cut that disrupted the line of his jaw, jagged and crusted brown from inattention. His hair was slicked to his head from his helmet, with several stubborn whorls sticking up near the back. Beneath all that ichor, there was a layer of exhaustion that seemed etched directly onto his flesh, a kind of weariness that she suspected was always there, though it was especially apparent now. Whatever he'd been doing during the two days she'd been recovering, it had clearly cost him.

And yet further still, underneath everything else, was a man far more vulnerable and far less intimidating than she had imagined. The hazy, vague mental image she'd constructed of his face—pieced together through a combination of wishful daydreaming, small glimpses of his body from the spring, and the brief, tactile exploration of his face she'd done in the pitch dark of his ship's cabin—immediately melted away as she confronted the broken, imperfect reality in front of her. Din was only a man, and a well-worn one at that.

The image of his face blurred as tears came to her eyes. He was shaking again, watching her watch him, and she knew she had to say something. Blinking to clear her vision, she closed the space between them and reached for his face. His own expression crumpled as her fingers brushed the sweep of his jaw, lined with patchy stubble that was boyishly endearing and completely, entirely out of place from what she'd expected.

Omera drew in a shaky breath, trying to find something to say. She wondered if they'd spend the entire night like this, working through waves of sobs that made conversation impossible and that sapped them of whatever little energy they had left. He was shaking so hard now that she had to hold his face to keep him steady.

"Why are you—" His eyes were so dark brown they were nearly black, and she couldn't look away from them. "Why?" She couldn't get the rest of the words out, but he found her meaning all the same. The weight of his head sagged into her hands, like it was the only thing holding it up.

"Henric," he whispered. "When I saw you, at the warehouse, when you—"

He stopped and turned his head down into her hand, his brow furrowing—and she could see it! She could see it now, plain as day—as the tips of his fingers brushed her side. "When you were stabbed," he breathed, his voice wavering. "I let him get away and I didn't care."

She brought his eyes back to her own with an insistent push of her fingers on his chin. They were so wonderfully dark, and full of a hesitant, open warmth that she had not been prepared for. It was the same softness she'd heard in his voice whenever he spoke to her, and now she wondered how she'd never seen it before, even through his helmet, even through his visor.

"What does that mean?" she asked, unable to tear her eyes away from his face. "I thought—your Creed—"

"You are _haat kar'ta,"_ he whispered. "A trueheart. You've always looked away."

"Until now," she said with an uncertain smile.

He smiled back, and she decided then that he was beautiful—the way his eyes crinkled, the way the uneven stubble on his face dug into the faint dimples around his mouth, the brief flash of teeth. It cut through everything else, anything else, and she finally saw him fully.

"Until now," he whispered back.

She pulled him down and kissed him. A final, stray sob found its way between them, coming from who she couldn't tell. His arms circled around her waist as he bowed into her lips and his nose pressed against her cheek, and the taste of salt and copper filled her mouth. It wasn't frenzied like before—they were too tired for that. But it was all the better for it, a slow and gentle meeting that made her decide she was going to do this a hundred more times with him.

"You are," she murmured into his mouth, exhaling with a tired laugh, "so incredibly filthy."

He huffed. "I know. Sorry, I probably—I probably taste awful."

"It's an easy fix." Despite the grime, she didn't have it in her to put any distance between them. She tilted her head, glancing over at his shower nozzle.

He followed her gaze and his mouth quirked. "I still don't have hot water."

"Guess we'll have to warm up some other way," she whispered, turning her head to mumble the words into his cheek.

He froze in her arms as he absorbed what she was suggesting. This close, with her hands still at his face, she could feel the hammering pulse under his jaw. His throat worked as he swallowed, and his eyes closed as a shudder went through him.

"Din," she said softly, letting her thumb rub against the grain of his stubble and smear soot across his cheek. "Let me help you. Let me—" She swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut as they stung with fresh tears. "You took care of me. Now let me take care of you."

Another shudder ran down his spine. She wanted there to be no uncertainty between them. This was not just a kiss, not just an embrace in the barn. The fact that she could now watch every thought run its course across his face was proof enough of that.

He searched her face, his eyes darting around, wondering. There was an undeniable heat in his gaze and he didn't bother to hide it, either because he didn't want to or didn't know how. And as distracting as that was, she couldn't escape the fascination of watching his thoughts scrawl themselves plainly all over his expression. All this time she'd been missing half the conversation—his pauses, his awkward bouts of silence in between what he decided to say, now so full of careful deliberation.

He sighed into her then, almost in defeat. "I don't know how," he confessed. "I've never…."

"It's okay," she assured him, just as softly. "I know you're exhausted, and hurting. I am, too. Just let me help you get cleaned up first. Wherever that leads, we'll figure it out together."

A nervous exhale escaped him then, not quite a laugh, but it was a breath of relief all the same. She tipped her chin up to kiss him again, gentle and brief, before pulling back to let him speak.

"Okay," he murmured, eyes shining. "Okay."

Her smile threatened to split her face. "Come on," she said. "Let's get the rest of this off."

* * *

The thick fabric of his bodysuit was so stiff that it was impossible for him to peel himself out of it without her help. After unhooking the clasps that ran down his spine, she began with his right arm, rolling it down far enough that he could work the joint free.

He'd gone quiet as she began helping him out of his suit, watching her silently as she contended with a few days' worth of bloody work built up on his gear. She couldn't help but think back to the springs—he'd been silent then, too, but in clear discomfort. This was something softer.

Once she got the fabric down to his elbow, she paused to look at a deep purple bruise on his bicep. It was oblong, as if made by a staff or rod. Her fingers traced the outer crescent, and his eyes drew down to it.

"Looks painful," she murmured.

"It'll heal," he replied, though his tone was anything but flippant. She looked up, meeting his eyes, still marvelling that she could do that now.

"Are you alright?" He'd already retreated from his earlier tentative warmth, his expression now closed behind a wall of apprehension as the gravity of what concession he'd just made fully hit him.

"It's just a lot," he rasped, and offered her a small smile. She knew he wasn't just talking about right now, either.

She returned the expression. "For me, too."

He nodded, seeming almost relieved by that. She paused to touch his jaw, and he stilled to look at her.

"If it's too much—I can go up into the cockpit. I don't mind," she told him. In fact, there were few things that sounded more appealing than a good ten hours of sleep right now, even curled up on the floor of his ship. Despite having spent the last two days submerged in bacta, exhaustion still clung to her. It didn't stop the disappointment that swept low in her belly, though.

He shook his head. "It's alright," he whispered. "It's just—it's a lot."

She nodded. "Tell me if you need to stop."

She continued helping him out of his suit. It cracked and flaked off flecks of dried blood and dirt from the movement. There were a worrying amount of brown-crimson stains patching the fabric, disrupted by frays that had been hastily sewn back together. Up until this point she'd managed to keep her thoughts to herself, but when she found the bloody, ragged ends of a rip near his left tricep, she couldn't help herself.

"What in the hell did you do to yourself?" she asked. She held his sleeve while he worked his left arm from the suit, hissing out breath as he went.

"Non-Guild work is a lot messier," he replied, rather cryptically. "And a lot shittier."

"Looks like you jumped into a fighting pit," she muttered, and the decidedly avoidant look on his face told her she was probably more right than he wanted to admit.

With a sigh he removed his arm, and the suit finally fell away from his body. "Either way," he said, letting the fabric hang from his belt as he peeled off his plain undershirt. "It's done now."

"Yes," she agreed with a breath of relief, watching him drop the shirt tiredly on the ground. Her thoughts splintered—considering that maybe he was too tired to do this, that _she_ was too tired to do this, and a third, far more forceful thought that she couldn't care less how exhausted either of them were, only strengthened by the fact that she now had an unadulterated view of the top half of his body.

Well, not entirely unadulterated; much like his face, he was coated in the same grimy film, a combination of sweat, dirt and blood that only served to highlight the stark contrast of colourful bruises beneath it, and the horrific latticework of pale scar tissue that dug into his skin. The growing concern over his well-being significantly tempered her appreciation for the lean muscle that constituted his surprisingly slight frame. She knew that much of his armour was layered with protective padding beneath the steel, but seeing him out of it now was still startling.

"Omera?"

"Sorry?" She looked back up to his eyes, her face flushing. She'd been staring, and quite obnoxiously.

Humour played on his face, warring with that same apprehension she was certain her ogling had only served to stoke further.

"Can I—" Her hand reached out, then stopped short. "Can I touch you?"

His throat worked as he nodded, and she stepped close to him, brushing her fingers over his collarbone. His eyes fluttered closed, his breath rushing out of him like she'd punctured his lung. She pressed her palm flat to his pectoral, overtop a dark bruise that she realised must have been from where Winta had shot him during their lessons. The steady thrum of his heartbeat thudded beneath her hand, and she looked up to watch his face.

He opened his eyes after a moment, his gaze falling to her. They shone with more tears that he was too exhausted to shed, and she offered him a smile.

"Good so far?" she asked.

" _Bal'ban,"_ he rumbled, and her hand vibrated with the sound of his voice. "Good, yeah."

She leaned forward and kissed him softly. "Good. Get the rest of this off, then, and I'll take off mine."

He jolted slightly at that, as if just coming to the realisation that he wasn't the only one baring his body, and she couldn't help the grin that spread across her face.

"Or I could shower with you fully clothed," she said jokingly, and to her enduring delight, his cheeks pinkened with a flush.

"No, I just didn't reali—" He shook his head. "Never mind. It's stupid."

She laughed before pulling away from him, feeling her own cheeks heat as she watched him grapple with his belt buckle. His face certainly hadn't been the only thing she'd fantasised about, although this was hardly how she imagined something like this would happen between them. She'd long ago given up any serious thought of finding someone else to share her bed with up until a few weeks ago, and faced with it now, she couldn't suppress the thrill of exhilaration that ran down her spine.

However, reality quickly disabused her of the fantasy that this shared disrobing would be anything approaching romantic—or even all that dignified. They were both exhausted, both hurting, and both passed the age where these sorts of injuries could be easily shrugged off. They groaned like old people as they stripped off their clothes, and it was only until she was standing stark naked in his hold, staring at him from only several paces away, that the gravity of this ritual fully hit her. As he let the last of his suit fall away from his body, all of the calm, experienced certainty she'd offered to him earlier dried up all at once.

She took in the sight of him, breath caught in her throat. The lines of his body were familiar, but everything else was foreign. Again it struck her how slight he was—surely this couldn't be the same man that cut a terrifying shadow beneath Sorgan's harsh sun, who spoke with a deep gravity that made everyone go silent to listen to him speak, who had shared the violent demands of Mandalorian living with her daughter. If he put on a farmer's frock she wouldn't be able to pick him out of a crowd of villagers.

He cleared his throat with a shaky exhale and she looked up at his face again, his expression full of the same terrified uncertainty that she felt.

"Hey," she said stupidly, swallowing down her fear.

"Hey," he echoed, just as tentative, and she reached out for him. If they were close it would be okay, she thought. They could learn each other piece by piece that way.

He took her outstretched hand, fingers trembling. She watched him look at her, his eyes darting across her body. His gaze caught on her ribs, still taped over with bandages, and his free hand brushed against it gently.

"It's not—" She let out a trembling sigh at the warmth of his hand. "It doesn't hurt, really. More just an ache. Bacta does wonders."

He looked up at her. In the low light, his eyes looked black, and wide with awe. "You're beautiful," he murmured, almost in disbelief.

The sudden compliment took her aback. Omera bit her lip, shivering with pleasure even as a bubble of nervous laughter escaped her. "You sound surprised."

His mouth twitched, but his expression was still serious, drawn sharp with a heavy wonder. "Surprised I get to see you," he clarified, his voice so soft it was nearly inaudible.

Her smile widened. "I should say the same." She brought up their untwined hands between them, disentangling her own fingers so she could inspect him properly. His fingernails were caked with dirt, a few of the beds black from blood clots. The calluses were rough and uneven, formed to fit comfortably around the grip of a gun. She didn't want to compare him to Rishan, but found herself doing it anyway. They both had labourer's hands, though Din's were decidedly more bloodied.

"Does it feel odd?" she asked, running her thumb over the back of his hand. "Touching bare skin?" She'd touched his hand before, but not like this.

He nodded, his throat working. " _Mar'eyce."_

She remembered the word from when she'd first kissed him in his cabin. "You never told me what that means."

"There's no translation," he replied. "But it's—it's good. Really good."

She laughed quietly, and brought his bloodied knuckles up to kiss them. "Come on then," she whispered into his skin, and tugged him towards the shower. He followed after her, his free hand settling on her waist, as if he couldn't help himself. She let go of him to open the nozzle, and with a gasp she shrunk back when the cold, harsh spray burst on.

She rubbed at her shoulder, which had caught only a few glancing drops, and shuddered hard. "That is—that is freezing!"

He only offered an apologetic smile as he stepped up beside her, holding a hand into the spray to test it. A slight shudder ran through him, and then he closed his eyes, held his breath and ducked beneath it.

Omera crossed her arms, a sympathetic shiver going through her as he bowed his head and submitted himself to the harsh, cold reality of the spray. He looked over at her, water clinging to his eyelashes—he had wonderfully long eyelashes, she thought.

She looked down at his outstretched hand, her lips pursing.

"You said you'd come in with me," he reminded her, and paused to wipe his mouth. Rivulets of dirt streamed down his skin, and he had to blink to keep his vision clear.

"I did," she conceded, not moving yet. "You look very cold."

"I am."

Omera still didn't move. She also didn't admit that this distance was a perfect vantage to look at him from. Over her initial shock, and now that he was washing off the grime he'd been caked in, she caught on details previously missed. The lean muscle of his upper thigh, dusted with dark hair; the sharp line of his back; the tapered, faint vee of his waist that drew her eyes further down still. He was half-hard, a feat she found nonetheless impressive, given how much he'd been abusing his body and how exhausted he clearly was.

Her face heated and she looked back up to meet his gaze. He was still looking at her, still shivering under the shower.

"You're beautiful," she told him, borrowing both his earlier sentiment and the gravity with which he'd delivered it.

His jaw worked as another shudder wracked through him, and this time she didn't think it was from the cold. She finally stepped under the showerhead, suppressing a curse at the frigid temperature, and let her hand trail across his back. The water clinging to him had turned to streaks of brown and even black, and she smiled as she wiped his hair back from his face.

"You're also a mess," she murmured amusedly, brushing away a wet smudge on his cheek.

He tilted down to kiss her—still softly, still unhurried, and he let his forehead rest against hers as he pulled her close. His body was a wall of warmth that only made the water feel that much colder, and she clung to him as a shiver ran down her spine.

He gasped at the contact when she pressed against him—her bare breasts to his chest, their hips flush together. A constant tremor ran through him now, and it was definitely not just from the cold. She succumbed to it too, her temples aching as she clenched her teeth. Broken, mumbling Mando'a filled the air between them, almost like he was uttering a prayer.

She nudged her nose to his cheek, feeling his breath wash harshly over her skin. "Still good?"

"Omera—" His hand buried itself in her hair and he shuddered so hard they rocked in place. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight to him. He drew in breath to speak, but all he managed was a groan. His heart hammered wildly in his chest, enough that she could feel it beat against her skin.

She settled a hand on his shoulder, holding him as he shook. Her mouth pressed against his ear, and he made a strangled noise. "There's a lot more to this than standing close together, you know," she whispered, smiling.

" _Ni ash'um,"_ he muttered breathlessly. "I won't survive it."

She laughed, shivering again from the cold. "I won't survive this shower, either."

A breathless, silent laugh rumbled in his chest, and he removed an arm from her waist only long enough to grab a washcloth from a shelf nearby. She took it from him when he brought it under the spray, and he gave her a look of protest.

"Relax," she whispered, and kissed him again for good measure. That seemed to calm him—or at least distract him long enough that she could wet the cloth and lather it with some soap. "Just… relax."

He sagged against her, a soft sigh escaping his lips as she smoothed the cloth over his chest. She understood then how tired he truly was—the cold water was enough to keep him awake, but he weaved where he stood, supported only by her bracing hands. She had to keep a hold of him as she scrubbed him clean to make sure he didn't topple over.

At some point his eyes fluttered closed, his forehead pressed to her shoulder, a hand cupped to one of her hips like an anchor. She took care in being as gentle as she could, her concern only growing as she wiped away the grime to reveal layers of bruises and cuts. They made the scar tissue that lashed across his skin only stand out further—pale grooves beneath blotches of bloody purples and greens. She could track easily which ones were new and which were old, a jagged roadmap across his body that went from a furious pink to a dull white.

Many of them were small and inconsequential, the kind that most people accrued from living on the frontier. Tiny cuts that had healed poorly, scrapes that had accidentally cut deep enough to leave an imprint on his skin. But a few were worrisome; some were clear marks from death blows that he'd managed to survive in spite of their ferocity. One especially gave her pause—a grizzly knot of scar tissue just beneath his right nipple. It was old and faded, but it must have been life-threatening when he got it.

"What happened here?" she breathed, brushing a thumb over it. His head turned on her shoulder, looking down at the space between them.

"Oh," he hummed, his voice thick and rasping, like he'd just woken up. "I caught some shrapnel during training. There used to be more—the rest've all faded away."

She tilted her head so her cheek pressed into his ear, letting out a breath that made him shiver. "You weren't wearing armour?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

He shook his head, his hair tickling her skin. "I hadn't earned it yet."

Omera closed her eyes, and the face of her daughter was waiting there for her. He must have been her age, perhaps younger. She couldn't imagine it—not him as a scared little boy with a horrific injury, nor Winta being in his place. It made her wonder what he'd truly meant when he'd told her that the Mandalorians had cared for him as a child. Keeping him alive wasn't the same as caring for him, and even then, they'd clearly done a poor job of it.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," he murmured, and she realised she hadn't responded to him. "Hasn't in a long time."

"That's good," she said quietly, forcing a smile. Tears would come otherwise.

The washcloth was filthy by the time she was done, and she let it fall to the grated floor with a wet flop. She grabbed the soap again and began to lather it into his hair, and he moaned into her neck at the sensation, his full weight sagging into her. The both of them were stiff from the cold and aching with exhaustion, and she found it a challenge to support both of their weight combined.

Din's arms circled around her back, his face buried into her skin. He whispered something she didn't catch before sighing. "That feels so good," he said with a groan, his head pushing up against the pressure of her hand. A shiver of pleasure racked through him, and when she scraped her fingernails against his scalp, he nearly collapsed into her.

"If you fall down I won't be able to pick you up," she warned him, smiling.

He mumbled something that sounded like "I don't care," rolling his body against hers in time with the movement of her hand. He was still half-hard, and pressed against the swell of her hip, something she'd tried not to let distract her until now.

She placed a kiss on his shoulder, now clean and free of dirt, and tilted their heads back into the path of the shower so she could rinse them both off. The shock of cold water on his face seemed to startle him, but he was still clearly content with letting her do most of the work. In another context, with another man, she would've found it amusing, but she knew this relinquishing of control was one he offered to very few people. And the memory of that night in his cabin—of how it had ended—told her that the last time he'd made such a concession, it had hurt him terribly.

He eventually pulled himself together enough to wash and rinse his face off properly. When he finally shut off the water, she only clung to him more tightly as the air whispered against her cold, wet skin.

"Towel?" she murmured, nearly a plea, and he found one to wrap around their shoulders. He scrubbed at his hair with the ends, and she wiped her face dry. She'd have to dry and comb her own hair—a process that would take far longer than his—but that would come later. Judging by the languid look on Din's face, he was very close to sleep.

She huddled close beneath the towel and looked toward their packs, where their bedrolls were still cruelly folded up. Sleeping on the ground never seemed so appealing.

"I forgot about that," she said, and he followed her gaze. "Dammit."

"Here," he whispered, ducking out from the towel and folding it around her. "I'll do it."

* * *

The cold made his joint stiff. With a grunt he knelt down beside their packs, and he had to pause to flex his fingers before working at the ties that strapped down their bedding. The frigid tremor that ran through his body made the muscles in his back seize—not like before, but it clearly wasn't fully healed yet. He couldn't wait to lie down.

Behind him, he could hear the friction of the towel as Omera rubbed at her hair, her breath coming out in shivering exhales. "Your hair," she said quietly, and he glanced over his shoulder. "It's longer than I expected."

"I've been meaning to cut it," he replied, smiling faintly. The towel was large enough to cover her shoulders, but the ends stopped at the tops of her thighs, brushing against her skin. He resisted the reflex to look away—he didn't have to anymore, not now.

He did, however, have to get the bedding spread out, so after a moment of lingering he turned back and concentrated on unrolling the packs. She stepped closer, the soles of her feet padding against the deck grating.

"You cut your own hair?" she asked, and then, before he could respond: "I suppose that makes sense."

"Gets in my eyes if it's too long," he told her, pushing the roll down the length of the hold and watching the bedding unfold. "And it's foul under my helmet in hot seasons."

She laughed quietly. "I can imagine."

He looked back up and found her much closer, standing over him now. Her own hair was slicked back, away from her face, and dried enough that it wasn't dripping. She'd been staring at him openly while he'd been laying out the bedding, and she wasn't bothering to hide it now.

He swallowed hard. "I can't stand back up," he confessed, shifting his weight on his knee as he let his eyes trail down. Her skin even looked soft, flared as it was with goosebumps.

"Get in, then," she told him, nodding to the unrolled pack. "I'm right behind you."

He settled the pillows at the head and then slipped under the blanket. Another shiver wracked him as he curled beneath the covers, but paused in his maneuvering when he heard the towel drop and looked up at Omera.

He'd gotten a good look at her body before they'd stepped into the shower, but the sight of her still made his breath hitch and catch in his throat. She was cut with lean muscle from a lifetime of work—a fact that didn't surprise him, especially with how her jumper had clung to her body, but it made him marvel nonetheless. And while it was a far cry from the tattered, decades-old collection of scar tissue that covered his own body, her skin still bared a smattering of old scars. The most notable one was the line cut low across her abdomen, faded with time but clearly the result of a tumultuous pregnancy. Above it on her right side was the waterproof bandage taped below ribs—another wound that would surely leave a mark.

Her hand came up, brushing across her belly to partially cover the scar, and he looked up to her face to see a self-conscious hesitance in her eyes.

His chest clenched painfully, caught full of things he didn't know how to say. Reverence was so much more difficult to communicate in Basic, so instead he smiled and offered his hand. "Come here."

She took it and knelt down, crawling into the bed beside him. Again it struck him how warm she was, even with how frigid the shower had been and the cool temperature of the hold. It was as if she'd soaked up enough heat from Sorgan's sun that it had seeped into her bones and radiated off her skin.

She crowded his pillow as they lied down, face to face, and her arm settled around his waist like it was supposed to always be there. "I feel so old," she complained with a huff, and pulled the blanket up around their shoulders. She pressed her forehead to his and he let out a sigh, pulling her closer. Already he could feel the chilled tremors receding as they huddled close together, unbinding the knots in his back and making him go slack with relief.

"You are so warm," he murmured, and her breath blew across his face as she let out a quiet laugh. If he'd not already been lying down, the sensation would have staggered him.

"You keep saying that," she replied, reaching up to brush away strands of hair from his eyes. It was all at once too much and not enough—he could feel the climbing ache of need low in the pit of his stomach, and yet each successive touch or brush of breath felt like it was threatening to send him over. He couldn't imagine anything beyond it, and then she would show him something even more sweeter still.

"I can't get over it." He sunk against her, into her. This close together her body felt endless, an infinite expanse of soft skin and thick hair that made his own body thrum in response. It was a much more powerful, quaking echo of the night she'd kissed him, a pleasure so intense and vast that he would never come back from it.

"Din," she whispered. He never knew how lovely the sound of his own name could be. "Hey."

Her fingers tapped his cheek and he realised he'd closed his eyes. Opening them, he found her own face, the bridge of her nose and deep brown gaze. "Yeah," he breathed, and held his breath to listen to her speak.

"Are we going to sleep?" she asked, her eyes searching his face. "Or to bed?"

His mouth twitched even as his heart began to beat loudly in his ears. "I need to rest," he told her, and buried his hand in her hair. "But I want you."

He pressed his nose to her cheek and kissed her—properly this time, now that they weren't freezing and there was no wall of filthy armour between them. The force of it rocked down his spine, making him shudder for an entirely different reason. Her soft grip on his waist turned hard, pulling their hips flush together and jostling his erection into her stomach. The cold and the grime and the exhaustion had made it difficult to even stay coherent, and yet even as oblivion tugged at the corners of his mind he could feel his body responding to her insistent, deliberate touch. Omera was demanding without being brutal, frantic but not hurried. He hadn't known those were different things until now.

She pressed him back into the bed and rolled with him, bracing her hands on his shoulders as she straddled his waist. He could feel her wet and slick against his abdomen, and the fluid roll of her hips made him arch up instinctually into her. Heat pulsed off of her body in waves, and he even felt sweat dew on his skin from the intensity of it. He arched into her again as her hands began to roam across his body. He let his own wander, one finding the tender underswell of a breast as the other ran along her back, her damp hair tickling his fingers. It was exactly what he'd wanted to do when they'd kissed the first time; touch as much of her as possible, to learn her body with his hands so that he could finally stop wondering and wanting whenever he looked at her. To know what the line of her thigh felt like, or how soft the underside of her breasts were. He wouldn't be able to look at her now, ever again, without knowing all of this, all of _her,_ and an aching cleave cracked down the centre of his chest at the thought.

Omera gasped and broke away, swallowing down her breath. He did the same, and felt her thumb brush his bottom lip as she cupped his jaw.

"Don't worry," she breathed. "I can do… most of the work."

He was out of breath and couldn't laugh, but he did smile against the swell of her mouth, and a moment later she broke away and rose up over him, her hands trailing down and settling on his chest. The movement let cold air rush in between them, and her palms felt like iron brands against his skin.

He swallowed and stared up at her, his hands coming to rest naturally on her hips. "You mean... like this?" he asked, his eyes trailing across her body. Her nipples had hardened from the cold, and he had the intense urge to pull her back down again, to cover her entire body with his own and prevent any space from coming between them.

Her fingers tapped his chest and he realised she was speaking. "... else did you envision it?"

"Oh." He pushed up on an elbow, shuddered as the cold air hit his back, and wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her in place. She kissed him when he rose up to meet her, delaying his response several seconds longer. "I don't know, I just—"

She raised a brow. "You've never thought about it?"

His face heated. "Tried not to," he confessed. "Didn't want to tempt anything."

Her smile twitched. "And how'd that work out?"

He ducked his head, pressing his face to her shoulder. "Pretty good, I think," he breathed, and she laughed softly against his ear. "This is different, anyway."

Her hand cupped the back of his head. "Different?"

He nodded. "Different," he whispered. "You're different, from anyone else who's tried to—"

The sentiment hung unfinished as he groped for words and came up empty. He wished for the dozenth time that she spoke Mando'a. It would be so much easier to explain it to her.

He pulled up and kissed her again instead. It wasn't enough, but it was better than words. "What about," he started over, gesturing between them, "what about—you know—?"

"Ah," she hummed. Taking one of his hands, she swept it across her belly, over the faded scar. "I can't, not anymore. Not after Winta. She will be my only one."

He nodded, looking down between them, their mingling of skin and muscle. He wasn't much larger than her, he thought. Not this close, not when they were both stripped bare.

"Din." She caught his attention with fingers trailing his jaw, rasping against the uneven stubble on his cheek. "You're ready?"

He closed his eyes and shuddered. "Yes," he whispered. "I think so. But I don't know what to—"

"Just follow me," she told him, and smiled against his cheek. "It's not all that complicated."

That was good, he thought. Touching her was the simplest thing in the world and even that made focusing impossible.

"I have to touch you," she said then, almost a warning, and the concern made him look up at her. "If that's—I know you didn't want me to before."

He was confused for a moment—she was already touching him—and then a spike of cold clarity cut through the haze. "Right," he whispered.

It had been surprisingly easy to keep Xi'an out of his thoughts; Omera could not be more different from her, especially in the ways that mattered. But he could feel the memory of her, brutal and hurried, press up from the deeper corners of his mind, not quite forming but nonetheless there.

"Din—"

"It's okay," he told her, relaxing into the firm warmth of her body. "It's alright. You can—you can touch me."

"You're okay?"

His jaw clenched, pressure building behind his eyes. "I'm okay," he whispered truthfully, and gave her a smile. "Omera."

She kissed him one more time, and then reached behind her, wrapping a hand around him. He'd become almost painfully hard, pressed up against her as he was, and the soft, pliant sensation of her fingers was nearly enough to do him in there. He gasped and found the solace of her neck again, his arm clenching around her as he tried to manage the sudden frenzy of his heart. This was nothing like the need he'd felt before in his life—this wasn't an annoyance he had to hastily deal with in the mornings, something to only be inconvenienced and distracted by. This need burned all the way up his spine and made his thighs ache with the instinct to buck up into her hand until he came against her skin and blacked out from the strength of it.

It was a near thing, but he managed to keep still, breathing harshly into her neck. Omera moved up onto her knees and forced his gaze up as she knelt over him, her head blocking out the overhead running lights and casting her features in sharp relief.

"Ready?" she murmured, one final time.

"Yeah," was all he could muster, and then she sank down onto him.

* * *

He was positive that he very briefly lost consciousness, because he didn't remember the few seconds after. The sound that ripped from his throat was one he wasn't sure he'd been capable of making, tempered only by the matching cry Omera gave as she settled back down into his lap. She clutched at his head and shoulder and he found a spot to press his face against her breast. Above the pounding pulse of his own heartbeat, all he heard was her harsh, uneven breathing that came in offbeat concert with his own, mixing in the air between them.

She didn't move, the only mercy that was keeping him from seeing stars again, but the ragged edge to her breathing made him worry. "You okay?" he rasped into her skin, and felt her face move against the top of his head.

"Yeah," she murmured, though doubtfully. "I um—it's just been—a while."

He nodded, not fully catching her meaning but trusting her anyways.

"You?" she asked, and pulled away to frame his face with her hands. He had no choice but to look up at her, and she was so painfully beautiful it hurt to meet her eyes. Her face was heavily flushed, her hair falling around her face and her eyes blown wide with adrenaline.

She was asking him a lot of questions he couldn't possibly answer. "If you move," he whispered, wetting his lips and trying anyway. "I'm going to come."

They both shook with her laughter, and she hugged him to her chest again. He went willingly, nosing her collarbone and drinking in the scent of her skin, now faintly sticky with sweat. He was the same, he realised, but he was too wrapped up in her warmth to register the chill of the air.

He groaned again. "You're so _warm."_

"So are you," she breathed, her arm settling across his shoulders as she fully caught her breath. "We can get back in the shower again if you're hot."

He laughed. "I told you, I can't stand up."

"Good," she hummed, and pulled away enough to kiss him. "I don't want to get up either."

He let her kiss him again. Her movements were more frantic now, her ribs humming with a low moan as she tried to keep still. He wanted her to move her hips, desperately, and be able to move against her, but he didn't trust his body. He wasn't used to the build, only the release, something that had only ever been a fleeting and momentary spike of pleasure in an otherwise tedious affair.

Her mouth trailed away from his lips, across his jaw and nudging his chin up with her nose to get at his neck. He surrendered to her immediately, openly, bracing a hand behind him and tilting his head back as she sucked at the ragged pulse at his throat. Another groan was ripped out of him, strangled and high, and even though this was only making his entire body ache with need he couldn't possibly tell her to stop.

"Din," she whispered, and her voice was just as strangled. "I have to—I need to move."

He nodded dimly, pulling his head up and giving her one final, open kiss before she rolled her hips against his.

They both gasped, and instantly the languid tilt of his body turned rigid as he grabbed her waist and ground up into her, the movement instinctual more than anything. The ache in his thighs, in his gut, turned molten as she began to move rhythmically against him, so intense he thought maybe he'd see stars again.

He wanted to kiss her, but they were moving too roughly, and she was up on her knees again, kneeling over him. He found her breasts again instead, cupping one in his hand as he pressed messy kissed to her skin. Her palm swept his chest and found a nipple, her thumb worrying the edges and somehow making him even harder than he already was.

The muscles in his flank and back already began to flare as he bucked up into her, and he realised with a distant sort of amusement that he was entirely unused to using these parts of his body. He'd be sore come morning, and in more ways than one. But he couldn't stop if he wanted to; his focus had whittled down to her and only her. It wasn't like the clarifying haze that overtook him in a fight, where decades of experience taught him how to ignore the instinctual responses of adrenaline; now he gave into them fully and completely, his thoughts so frenzied that the only thing that mattered was the next roll of her hips.

Omera's hand slid down his chest, trailing across his stomach and touching where they met. He looked down in the limited space between them and saw her fingers rubbing over herself. He also saw the base of his own cock, revealed briefly as she rose up before burying him inside her again. The harsh rhythm of it was enough to entrance him, but he dragged his eyes up enough to look at her above him, barely mustering enough breath to speak. "What are you—doing?"

She kissed him once, roughly, before the movement of her hips jostled them apart. "Touching myself," she breathed, and the desperate edge in her voice made him shudder. Her other hand grabbed his, which was resting on her hip, and drew it up to one of her breasts. "Can you—I need you to—"

Her words dissolved into a moan as she frantically ground into him, the movement of her hips becoming rough and erratic. She pressed her face into his hair, gasping out breath. "Harder," she told him, snapping whatever was left of his restraint.

He squeezed her breast and rutted up into her, pressing himself as deeply as he could inside her body. Any concern for being gentle left him as her nails scraped against his back and she arched into his palm and whined out a breathless _yes, god, yes_ again and again. He could feel her clench around him with need, and with a surprising amount of force she pressed him down into the bed and braced a hand on his chest to keep herself stable. The change in position gave her leverage to move even faster, and he managed to give a few hard, uneven thrusts before heat burst across his vision and ripped down his spine. His hands clamped onto her hips as he drove up inside her and came, his whole body rocking with the force of his release. He was too out of breath to let out anything more than a deep, shuddering groan, and he found Omera's eyes, scrunched with need, as he worked through each wave of his orgasm.

His grip on her waist was hard enough to slow the roll of her hips, but she still ground against him until he was gasping and shaking underneath her. She collapsed onto his chest, her cheek pressed to his, the both of them trying and failing to catch their breath as their chests heaved in time with one another. And this time, when oblivion tugged at the edges of his vision, he went willingly.

* * *

To his surprise, his sleep was light and fitful, and when he woke again to see Omera's back turned away as she combed through her still-damp hair, he realised he must have only been asleep for an hour at most.

His body still hurt, a lot, but he felt entirely weightless, like he was part of the blanket draped over his chest. When he brought a languid hand up to trail across her back, he watched it move as if in slow motion.

The light touch made Omera look over her shoulder, and a grin spread across her face when she met his eyes. The expression was contagious, and it felt like the easiest thing in the world to smile back at her, to share in her joy openly and without reservation.

"Hey," she whispered, but it wasn't shy like before—her voice was full of knowing, a satisfied kind of intimacy that convinced him he'd surely float away if he listened to her long enough.

"Hey," he croaked back, and she leaned down to brush her lips against his.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" she asked, her brow faintly creasing in concern. "I figured you'd be asleep for a while."

"So did I," he murmured, his mouth twitching. "But it's alright."

Her hand touched the cut on the left side of his jaw, which still stung with recency. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore," he said honestly, and she laughed. "But I'm—I'm good."

"I'm sore too," she confessed, and set her brush down beside the bed before lying down next to him. She nudged his shoulder and he turned to let her tuck herself up against his back, her arm draping itself over his waist. He instinctively reached for her hand, and she laced her fingers through his own. "I'm not used to moving like that."

He smiled and let his eyes droop closed. "I'm not either."

"Mm," she hummed against his neck, her nose tickling his skin with her breath. "You seemed to have a good handle on it anyway."

He squeezed her fingers. "You enjoyed it?"

"I did," she whispered, and a wave of pleasure washed over him at her words. Her other hand came up and brushed through his hair. "Did you?"

He laughed again, even as he pushed back into the comb of her fingers. "I don't know how to answer that."

"You were quite chatty before," she told him. "Unfortunately I don't know much Mando'a."

That surprised him enough for his eyes to open briefly. "I was?"

"You don't remember?" She sat up on an elbow to look at him from over his shoulder. Her grin was knowing. "It sounded like swearing. Or praying, perhaps, though I don't know many people who pray during sex."

He looked up at her, face flushed. "Oh. I guess I lost my head for a bit."

She hummed again, still grinning, and his face flushed further. "That's all the answer I need, then," she said, and then laid back down behind him. Her hand resumed its spot combing through his hair, making his eyes flutter closed again.

"You said you hadn't done this in a while. When was the last time?" he asked. "That you—you know."

"I do know," she said with amusement, then sobered to answer his question with a sigh. "The last time I shared my bed was with my husband. That would be—oh, that would be years ago. A decade, nearly. I was too full of grief for a long time to even consider being with another person, and then after that it was simply too much of a hassle to find anyone else."

He nodded, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she assured him. "As I said, I quite enjoyed myself."

He flushed with satisfaction. "Good."

"What about you?" she asked, squeezing his hand. "You said you've never done this before, but you didn't seem to need much direction."

"I'm familiar with the general mechanics," he told her, his mouth twitching as she laughed into his neck. "Details are just a bit vague. And the last time—it wasn't like this. She wasn't a good person. She wasn't like you."

And at that point in his life, when he'd run jobs with Ran and Qin and Xi'an as a young man nearly half the age he was now, he struggled to consider himself a good person either. They were all brutal people who did brutal things for a living, and the fact that he'd gotten caught up in that brutality had always been a question of when, not if. What Xi'an had done to him was not part of his atonement for the mistakes he'd made, but some days it felt like it.

Omera hugged him more tightly against her, bringing him out of his thoughts. "I don't mind," she whispered. "If you want to talk about it."

"I don't, really," he said, relaxing into her. "I don't think about her that much anymore."

Her nails scratched against his scalp and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He hoped she'd never stop doing it. "Good," she said quietly, curling more tightly around him. "You're okay? Truly?"

He knew she wasn't just talking about old ghosts. There were far more recent ones to contend with. "I'm okay," he replied, hoping that was the truth. It felt like it was in the moment, at least. " _Ni cuy suum ca'nara."_

"Is that good?"

He smiled. "Yes. I am at peace."

She seemed content with that and relaxed against him. "It's very pretty," she murmured, rubbing her shins against the backs of his calves. The hair on her legs was a lot finer than his, feathery and soft. "Mando'a, I mean."

He nodded in agreement, bringing her hand up to kiss her knuckles, just as she had done before. He found it good practice to mimic her—it felt natural to mirror her movements, and she seemed to like it well enough.

"You said something to me in your language, in the barn," she said softly, and he went still as he listened to her. "The night your boy fell in the pond. Do you remember?"

He swallowed. "Yes." The memory of it would be burned into his heart for the rest of his life.

"What was it?" she asked. "That you said?"

" _Gar ru tegaanal ner manda,"_ he replied, not daring to speak above a whisper. "I was ready to take my helmet off to save the kid. But you took care of him—and me. He probably would have died otherwise."

"What does it mean?"

He let go of her hand so that he could turn to face her. She must have dimmed the lights further in the hold, because her features were difficult to make out. "You saved my soul," he told her.

Her mouth wobbled as she searched his face, and she was so still he wasn't sure she was even breathing. Her hand came up to cup his jaw, her eyes unbearably gentle in the dim light.

"What about now?" she whispered. "You said—you called it _hat kartha?"_

" _Haat kar'ta,"_ he corrected her. "A trueheart."

He struggled, then, to think of how to explain it to her. She waited patiently, watching him gather his thoughts. The hand in his hair made it hard to focus on anything but the touch of her fingers, but this was important.

"We have to hide our faces," he began quietly, "to keep clan and kin safe from the Empire. But there aren't many Mandalorians left, and we have to work and live with those outside our Creed for most of our lives. Sometimes—sometimes there are those we can trust with the knowledge of our faces and souls. _Haat kar'ta_."

She smiled then, even as tears clung to her eyes. "What," she whispered in a wobbly voice, the humour in it tempered by her tears. "You really trust me not to rat you out?"

"I do," he replied, and felt his own eyes sting. "I'll be in a bad spot otherwise."

She laughed into his mouth as she ducked to kiss him, and they didn't pull apart again for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the Mando'a except for _haat kar'ta_ is canon - that one bit is mostly a justification for them to bone, but I would like to explore that avenue of Mandalorian faith further, either in this story or perhaps another project in the future.
> 
> Also, this is probably gonna be it in terms of updates until the middle of April, both because school is insane and because the new animal crossing comes out next week and I will be consumed by both of them.
> 
> I've also started a short list (found at [the endnotes of chapter 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611599/chapters/51533602#chapter_1_endnotes)) compiling all the wonderful art people have drawn for this fic. Please go check it out and also reblog it and tell them how great they are!!!!!!!!!


	17. Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot to consider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see!!! I hope everyone is staying sane and safe during quarantine. Big apologies for how slow this update was - I hope to be on a more regular update schedule this summer.
> 
> I also just wanna say thank you again (again) for all the supportive and wonderful comments on this fic. They've really helped keep me on track, especially with how stressful everything has been. Anyway, enjoy!!!!!

Rend’s gravestone looked lonely all by itself out in the field, even with everyone gathered around it. 

Winta hugged Fuzzy tight to her chest, trying not to listen to all the kids sniffling around her. She wanted to tell them to cut it out, that none of them paid attention to Rend when he was alive, so it was stupid that they suddenly cared now. Pressure built behind her eyes and her throat hurt as she heard the adults whisper words to his grave. Some of them were crying, too. 

But she wasn’t; she  _ wouldn’t. _

Looking around, Winta found one of the few people who wasn’t making any noise—Cara. She still looked upset, but in an angry sort of way, not a sad one. Winta straightened her own face out, trying to look more like her, and tried her best to pay attention to the service. 

Caben and Stoke were giving their goodbyes, pressing kisses to their fingers and their fingers to the grave marker. They’d buried Rend’s body sideways, so that he would be facing the sunrise each morning. It made her feel a little better about the fact that his body was completely covered by dirt; the sun was hot enough that it would still probably reach him, she thought, especially in the mornings. When she saw Caben’s face turn up to the crowd, swollen with tears, she quickly looked away.

The funeral didn’t last long, judging by how little the sun moved in the sky, even though it felt like it did. It was too hot outside to stand around in the field, and there was still a lot of work to do. They were supposed to have a big lunch in the longhall now, to celebrate everyone still alive and healthy, before getting back to the harvest. 

The murmuring around her turned happier once Idane called out for them to move inside—people laughing off their grief, turning to their children and comforting the ones who were still crying. Winta pressed her face to Fuzzy’s head as she watched Kasi and Balif hug their parents and blubber like babies. They shouldn’t be the ones crying, she thought. It wasn’t fair.

“You must be hungry,” Sora said next to her, making her look up. The woman was giving Winta a smile that was supposed to be comforting, but she just found it rude. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t a baby—she didn’t need to be distracted by an adult.

“Not really,” Winta lied, and turned away before Sora could say anything else to her. She looked around for some shade and walked away from the gathering, towards the pines at the edge of the forest. Everyone else was too busy to notice her leaving, and Sora was quickly swept up in conversation, letting Winta escape unnoticed. 

The harness the Mandalorian had made for her was tight and sticky on her thigh from the heat, even over her pants, but she liked wearing it too much to take it off, no matter how much it itched. Once she was under the shadow of the trees, she sat down in the grass with her back turned to the village. The forest looked cool and damp and everything that the pond fields weren’t. She wished she was allowed to carry her gun around, tucked into her harness. Then she could walk around the forest and not be afraid.

“When I’m older,” she whispered to Fuzzy, setting him down on the grass in front of her. He watched her with his big black eyes. “We won’t have to worry about anyone attacking the village again.”

Fuzzy didn’t respond to her, only sitting down so that his little feet poked out from his jumper. It was hard to tell, but she thought that he was probably really hot, too. 

She heard steps behind her, softly approaching. Winta ignored them, hoping whoever it was would go away. She didn’t want to talk to anybody right now.

“Hey kid,” said a voice following the steps, and Winta looked over her shoulder when she recognised that it was Cara. “You alright?”

Maybe there was one person she could talk to. “Yeah,” Winta said after a moment, turning back to watch Fuzzy. He was sitting quietly in the grass now, grabbing at any of the reedhoppers and field ants that were dumb enough to get close to him, squishing them in his palms.

“Can I sit?” Cara asked, much closer now. Winta only shrugged, and Cara walked over and sat across from her, her back to the treeline. She wasn’t wearing her usual armour; all she had on was an undershirt, and even that stuck to her with sweat. She’d helped Caben and Stoke bury Rend’s body this morning, shifting the dirt back into the grave, and her arms were pink from working in the sun. Her face still had that angry-upset expression on it, but Winta knew it wasn’t about her.

“How you holding up?”

“Fine, I guess,” Winta replied, watching her stretch her legs out in front of her. Everything about her looked powerful, even her legs. 

“I’m not a big fan of afterparties either,” Cara told her, pulling at the reeds beside her. They smeared green on her fingers when she ripped them up.

Winta frowned. “What do you mean?”

Cara jutted her chin towards the longhall. “Celebrations after a funeral. Not my thing.”

“Oh.” Winta paused, mulling her words over. “Have you been to a lot of funerals?”

Cara’s mouth quirked up, though it wasn’t a happy smile. “‘Funerals’ is a strong word,” she said after a moment. “Burials, more like. But yeah. Never liked the wakes much.”

Winta nodded like she understood. And she did, in a way. It felt wrong to celebrate after someone died. She wanted to ask why people did it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“This your first one?” Cara asked when she didn’t respond.

Winta shrugged. “First one I remember,” she told Cara, reaching into her frock pocket and pulling out a stone that she gave to Fuzzy. “We buried someone when I was a baby, but I don’t remember anything.”

“You did good,” Cara assured her, making Winta look up. The pressure behind her eyes came back. “They aren’t easy things to get through.”

“I’m not a baby,” she replied, swallowing around the spike in her throat. “Stupid kids crying to their parents for no reason.”

“It’s okay to be upset,” Cara said, which only made the pressure worse. “I am, too, and I barely knew the guy.”

She scrunched her chin up, clenching her teeth. “You don’t look upset.”

“Like I said, I’ve been to a lot of them.” Cara sighed and leaned back on her hands, looking up at the sky. “Your mom would be proud, you know. I’ll tell her when she gets back—”

Winta felt her face crumple. She wrapped her arms around herself, tears springing to her eyes at the mention of her mother. Her stomach hurt trying to hold the tears in, and she coughed out a sob that made her ribs ache. 

“Hey, whoa, I didn’t mean to—” Cara rolled onto her knees, shifting beside her. Her expression wasn’t calm anymore; she looked freaked out. Her hand reached out and touched Winta’s shoulder, light and soft despite how tough it looked. “It’s okay,” she said then, more softly than Winta was used to.

She wanted to respond, to tell Cara that she hadn’t meant to start crying, that she wasn’t a baby, but all of it got stuck in her throat and only made her cry harder. She curled in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest and pressing her face into her pants. They smelled like sweat and grass and leather, and wet blots appeared where she wiped her face on them.

“You mom is gonna be back soon,” Cara said, so confidently that Winta almost believed her. Her hand was still on her arm, warm from the heat, and it shook her to get her attention. “Hey, you hear me?”

Winta nodded and looked up, though her gaze fell to Fuzzy. He was watching her, calm as ever, but a little claw was resting on Winta’s boot. “I know,” she croaked, and extended a hand out to Fuzzy, who grabbed onto her finger with a squeak. “But she—she—” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down before trying again. “She shouldn’t have left.”

“She didn’t want to,” Cara murmured, sitting down beside her. She wasn’t like the other adults—she didn’t pull her into a smothering hug that smelled gross, or talk to her like she didn’t understand anything. She sounded a bit lost, too, and it made Winta feel less alone. “She didn’t want to leave you.”

“She did anyway,” Winta said bitterly.

“I know. I know it’s tough—”

“How do you know?” Winta asked. Everyone kept saying  _ I know, I know, _ like it was some big comfort. They never explained how they knew.

Cara gave her another unhappy smile. “My parents died when I was little. It’s hard to be left behind by them; I get that.”

Winta’s eyes widened. “Is my mom gonna die?”

“What? No! No, I didn’t—shit, I didn’t mean that—”

Cara did finally pull her in for a hug, but it wasn’t crushing and smothering. She wrapped a strong arm around Winta’s shoulders and pulled her into her side, patting her leg to get her attention. “Hey,” she said quietly. “I promise—I  _ promise _ your mom isn’t gonna die, okay? I just meant that—that I know it’s hard, that’s all. She’s coming back,” Cara repeated, this time in a much more resolute tone. “She’s gonna be fine.”

Winta nodded. The confidence in Cara’s voice made it easy to believe her, and Winta wanted to. She let her head rest back against Cara’s bicep, sniffling hard. “Okay,” she whispered back. “Good.”

“Yeah, good.” Cara blew out a breath before muttering  _ good _ again.

It was too hot to sit this close, but Winta didn’t care. Cara was strong, and she was one of the few people in the village who didn’t sound like she was lying all the time—she just said what she thought. Winta wanted to be as strong as her; as good with a gun as her. Then they wouldn’t need to hire anybody to protect the village. Then nobody else would die, and her mom wouldn’t have to leave again.

Despite the sticky heat, the half-hug calmed her down. If Cara said it would be okay, then it would be okay. 

“I can grab us something to eat,” Cara offered as Winta wiped her face with her frock. “We can have lunch out here.”

She nodded. That sounded good, too. “Okay.”

“And we can do some blaster practice after, if you want.”

Winta smiled, sniffling. “Okay,” she repeated, really meaning it this time.

* * *

He wasn’t sure at first what woke him—if it was the copper taste in his mouth or the ache in his shoulder or the creaking of the bulkheads indicating that they’d dropped out of hyperspace. Staring up at a portion of the ceiling he was unaccustomed to being greeted by in the mornings, he took several, deep breaths and slowly worked himself awake. 

He was quick to discover that it was more than just his shoulder that hurt—most parts of him did, all throbbing in time with his heartbeat. It was payment for pushing his body so hard; not just in the last few days, but across the span of several weeks, and now it was properly catching up with him. He’d be lucky if all he had to deal with now was a bad back, and there weren’t any hot springs handy to mend his worn joints this time.

He shifted on the bed, trying to ease the ache in his shoulder. It was reckless to push himself like that. He wasn’t in his twenties anymore; testing the physical limits of his body was no longer the exhilarating exercise it had once been. He knew damn well where those boundaries were now, and exactly how much it hurt to reach them. Perhaps if he hadn’t done so much of that bloodied testing in his youth, he wouldn’t be aching like he was now.

Stupid. Reckless.

A soft sigh interrupted his ruminating, and his head shifted on the pillow to look beside him. For a moment he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing; then his eyes focused, and they settled on Omera’s bare shoulder peeking up from the blanket, her dark hair fanning out behind her and clinging to the bedding. 

His breath hitched. The sight of her hit him centre of mass, and at once everything came bounding back. 

Hands fisting in the bedsheets, he shut his eyes and took another deep breath, trying to calm the sudden pounding of his heart. Each rapid beat pulsed at every overworked joint, every half-healed scrape and bruise. It was not just work that had made his body hurt like this.

Behind closed lids, the Armourer waited for him. He had recited to himself a few times how this conversation with her might go—a passing fantasy to remind himself to keep focused on the Path. Long ago he’d made peace with his own solitude, with the reality that Mandalorians in this age could not exist outside of their beskar. He’d spent a long time being angry about it, but the further he moved away from the rage of his youth, the more alienating the memory of it became. 

But sometimes, deep in the night, when his body ached with the infuriating need for something more than his own bedsheets, he would rehearse that infernal exchange with her. And in it, she always said the same thing to him.  _ Selfish. Indulgent. Traitor. _

He disagreed with none of those assessments. 

Din opened his eyes and turned the other way, searching for his armour. He found it easily, piled by the ladder where Omera had left it, filthy and dented. His helmet sat on a crate above it, the visor of his own face staring down at him. All of it seemed miles away.

He felt a shift beside him and clenched his jaw, realising how loudly he was breathing. A searching hand found his ribs, and even now he felt his body respond to her touch. Goosebumps flared across his skin; he quivered with the need to press into her warmth.

“Din?” Omera’s voice was raspy with sleep, and she only sounded half-awake. Swallowing hard, he turned towards her, unable to help himself, and gathered her close in his arms.

She hummed in contentment, nuzzling her head into his chest, and he pulled the blanket up to cover her exposed shoulder. “You’re warm,” she whispered, letting her arm settle around his waist. He pressed his face into her hair and closed his eyes, trying to settle into a blank space where the face of his Matriarch could not find him.  _ Selfish, indulgent, traitor. _

“So are you,” he whispered back, finding a peace in her warmth that he did not deserve.

* * *

Omera quickly fell back asleep. He held her as close as he could, for as long as he could, until he could no longer bear the weight of his own thoughts. Extricating himself from her as gently as possible, he faced the brutal cold of his ship’s cabin and attended to what was long overdue—cleaning his gear.

Only delaying long enough to get dressed and boil water for tea, he began by submerging his padding and undersuit in a small tub. They were stiff with filth, and he left them to soak while he cleaned the rest of his things.

Then he set out a mat on the deck, unrolled his cleaning kit, and spread his armour in a fan around him, taking a seat on the mat to appraise the state of his gear. The beskar was in remarkably good shape; he was used to his old durasteel, which bent and scuffed with nearly ever job he took. Had he been wearing that instead of a full cuirass of  _ beskar’gam, _ he’d be taping the pieces of it back together right now.

With a quick glance back at Omera to confirm that she was still asleep, he grabbed the small radio by his knee and flicked it on, making sure to keep the sound dial turned down. This close to Scas-II, he got a decent signal, and searched for a channel that played something unobtrusive and soft. Settling on Outer Rim Dirge, he set the radio back down carefully and got to work.

He began with his breastplate. The Armourer had gifted him with a fresh set of rust solvents, oils, and brushes when he’d received his new set, along with instructions to keep it well-maintained. He’d accepted both the gift and the advice with grace. Pure beskar did not require nearly as much upkeep, but that did not mean he could neglect maintenance altogether.

As he worked, he quickly settled into the ever-familiar rhythm of scraping and polishing his armour. It was infinitely more simple of a process than his durasteel, which required a careful hand in order not to scratch the paint. It was both a blessing and a curse; his mind quickly wandered under the repetitive simplicity of the task, and he had to make a conscious effort to keep focused on what was important.

The first thing he had to concern himself with was money; they were tens of thousands short of the expected sum from the walker, which meant they would have to prioritise only the most immediate necessities. He was certain Omera would focus on gathering medical supplies, and whatever was leftover—if there was any—would go to a small stock of weapons to protect the village from future raids. He abandoned any aspirations for hiring a maintenance facility to tune up the  _ Crest, _ or supplies for the kid. Those would come later—long after he left Sorgan.

Despite himself he glanced over at Omera again, the rag in his hand stilling on his pauldron. It had never escaped him that he’d be leaving at some point—not now, and certainly not last night. It was either that or immediately induct her and her kin as  _ Mando’ade, _ and he didn’t even have a covert to bring them to. That loss was the whole reason he’d come to Sorgan in the first place, after all. There was no other refuge out there for him.

His attention turned back to his pauldron, away from the outline of her body beneath the blanket, and began to scrub again. He needed to hang up his bodysuit to dry soon, he reminded himself, before turning the music up a little louder.

* * *

She dreamt of music—a soft pattering of drums, the pipe of a long flute, the twanging pick of strings. Her dreams tugged and pulled with each pluck of an instrument, never really forming into proper shapes. She dreamt of skin and warmth, blood and bone. They did not frighten her; they were dreams about life.

The soothing sound of the music followed her as she woke, only becoming more clear as she opened her eyes and blinked away sleep, until she realised that the music was not a dream at all. It was close by, flickering with the static of a patchy signal. Omera looked around for the source of the music, moving slowly. She located its origin easily; a small radio on the deck, set next to Din seated on the ground.

A small thrill went through her at the sight of him, helmetless and hair tousled from sleep. That had not been a dream, either.

Keeping still and silent, she watched him. All he had on was a loose shirt and pants, with his gear laid out in front of him. He was hunched over, frowning down at the helmet in his hands as he used a soft brush to clean the dirt from his visor. Judging by the freshly-polished sheen of the rest of his armour, he’d been at it for awhile.

It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him tend to his gear this way—he fiddled with it on a near-daily basis, but it had always been slight, simple adjustments, monitoring the wiring in his breastplate or wiping off errant smudges of dirt. This was a slow and careful act by contrast, meticulous in his precision and reverent in how gently he held his beskar.

Wondering if perhaps she was intruding on a private ritual of some kind, Omera shifted on the bed loudly enough that he would hear her, letting out a sigh and rubbing her eyes. He looked up instantly from his ministrations, and when she pulled her hand away from her face, she found him watching her. Now properly cleaned up and well-rested—he’d also shaved, she noticed—he was even more handsome than she remembered.

Omera smiled at him, curling on her side. “Good morning,” she whispered.

His throat worked as he swallowed. His mouth tugged up, too, though his eyes were still distant, caught up in thoughts that always seemed to pull at his attention. “Morning,” he rasped back, then looked down at the radio as it crackled. His expression turned sheepish as he reached down and flicked off the dial. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s alright, I dreamt of the music. You’ve been up for a while?” she asked, sitting up and tugging the blanket around her chest. There was an empty cup of tea beside him.

“A while,” he confirmed, setting his helmet down carefully and stretching his back with a grunt. “I needed to get my gear clean.”

She noticed he’d hung up his bodysuit, padding and cloak too, freshly washed. He’d been busy—and she’d slept like the dead.

Looking around for her bag, Omera moved to stand up—and then instantly regretted it as pain pierced her side, her skin tightening painfully over her ribs. She must have let out a gasp, because the next moment Din was kneeling beside her, hands on her shoulders, keeping her steady.

“I’m okay,” she said immediately, though she was in no hurry to shrug him off. He smelled like scrubbed steel and clean linen, and his hands were warm from work. Omera leaned into him as she got to her feet, and found that she did need his support to stand. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, steadying her. Too busy holding onto him to keep the blanket in place, she stood naked in front of him, and shivered from the chill in the air.

“Sore,” she surmised after a moment, looking up at him. His brow was drawn into a deep frown, and she leaned forward to kiss him softly. “But I’m alright, really. Just did too much last night.”

To her delight, colour brushed his cheeks at the reminder, and she ducked forward and wrapped her arms around him, soaking in his warmth. A moment later she felt his arms slip around her back, holding her close.

“Worth it, though,” she murmured into his shirt, and felt a silent rumble of amusement from his ribs. “You?”

“Sore,” he echoed, making her laugh, and she turned to press a kiss to his neck. Goosebumps flared in the wake of her mouth.

“And everything else?” she asked, pulling back. It was still such a marvel to see his face, to see every thought fill it with life. “You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“I do,” he admitted, then looked towards his gear. When he didn’t say more, she tapped his cheek to pull his attention back.

“Anything I can help with?” she asked, smiling.

A pained look passed over his face, but he suppressed it with a swallow and a pause of silence. “There’s—there’s a lot we can’t buy,” he said finally.

She sobered. It wasn’t that she had forgotten their time on Aston—far from it. But the rest and the warmth had staved off reality for a little while, and now it was coming back in full force. 

Omera felt her stomach sink. “I know.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You don’t need to be,” she interrupted him, and his jaw clenched. “Please. It’s already done. We just need to—to deal with the now.”

He nodded, though it was conciliatory rather than in agreement, before he disentangled from her and pulled away. She crossed her arms to ward off the cold as she watched him walk back to his set-up on the deck, where he picked up a piece of paper and frowned down at it.

“What is that?”

“Some math,” he replied, not looking up. “I know medical supplies are a priority, and after that your best bet is weapons. We’ve got—eight thousand credits,” he continued with a catch in his voice. “I’ll find a way to cover fuel.”

She walked over to him, standing beside him to read over his shoulder. His handwriting was odd—short and sharp, as if he’d been pressing the pen down hard; as if it had taken a great effort to write out.

“We’ll figure it out,” she replied again with a confidence she hoped was convincing, then pressed another kiss to his shoulder. “How close are we to Scas?”

He turned back to her, smiling faintly. “We can land whenever we like.” His arm wound around her waist again, as if on instinct, and she could feel his fingers tracing circles on her back. 

“I’d like to get dressed first,” she told him dryly, watching him struggle not to linger on all the exposed skin. “And perhaps have some breakfast.”

“I have ration bars. And tea,” he said doubtfully, looking towards the small kettle set near his bed. 

She hummed, shivering at the light touch of his hand. “I know. I could taste it on you.”

He looked back and kissed her, more insistently this time, and she had to grab onto his shoulders to keep steady. The sudden intensity of it surprised her; he kissed like a man starved, like each time would be their last, a desperate edge in his movements that nonetheless always felt like he was pulling away. And when he did break off, it was just as sudden, leaving her to catch her breath as he stepped away from her again.

“I’ll make more tea,” he said then, his voice hoarse, and it sounded strangely like a confession, too.

* * *

Scas-II was mercifully dissimilar to Aston. Where Marketsport had been full of sprawling grey industry and rotting bars, the city of Kovine was full of colour. Vibrant banners called attention to merchant stalls; violet and mustard reedgrass sprung from every crevice and crack in the boarded walkways, under which river water lapped softly at the support beams; the streets were full of shoppers of all stripes. It was overwhelming, even for someone used to the painfully lush vistas of Sorgan.

Omera watched the crowds as they walked the streets. It was midday, but the sun was pleasant rather than oppressive, and it made the water around them shimmer. Some of its beauty was undercut by their pace, which wouldn’t have been a problem had she not been stabbed three days ago. 

“Crowded,” Din observed absently, nudging them through a throng of people gathered near a fabrics stall. Back in full gear now, he was much larger, and the modulation of his helmet made his voice sound that much deeper. The soft hesitance from this morning was gone, replaced by a singular, laser-like focus that made people give them a wide berth.

She strangely welcomed its return, though she took pleasure in being able to hold onto his arm as they walked, and not just because he was a good support to lean on. It was impossible to tell if the looks they got were from the oddity of seeing someone so close to a Mandalorian or because of the brilliant shine to his armour, but she ignored them as best she could regardless. 

“Doesn’t this draw a lot of attention?” she asked him, smudging a finger over the rim of his pauldron. Her legs burned with the effort to keep up with him.

He looked down at her hand before shrugging, and the movement threw off glints of sunlight. “There’s upsides to it.”

“Like blinding your enemies,” she mused, and thought she heard him huff in amusement. It was difficult to hear him in the middle of the market, and he was soft-spoken by nature. “Can we—can we slow down a bit?” 

“Of course,” he said immediately and pulled them to the side of the street, his visor turning back to her in concern. It was much easier to read his body language now, she thought. “Are you alright?”

“Just a bit winded,” she assured him with a smile, pressing her free hand to her side. She recognised the fatigue for what it was; now that the effects of the bacta had fully worn off, her body was left only with its own immune system, and the shift would take time to get used to. She remembered reading about it in her studies; experiencing the withdrawal firsthand was even less pleasant. 

“We can rest,” he replied, and his head swivelled around, presumably for a spot to sit. 

She shook her head, “I don’t want to slow us down—”

Ignoring her, he pulled them off the main boardwalk and towards a small series of docks that opened up onto the riverfront. It was far less busy there, with only a few food stalls attracting foot traffic.

Din brought them to the end of a short dock and helped her sit down on the edge. Several feet below them, the water shimmered a startlingly clear green—she could even see fish moving lazily beneath the surface.

“Better?” he asked, kneeling beside her. She swallowed and nodded, closing her eyes as the wind blew over her skin. She hadn’t realised how lightheaded she’d been.

“Just for a minute,” she replied. “We can rest.”

He waved a hand, dismissing her concern. “You’re hungry.”

She nodded again, holding back a sigh of relief now that they were no longer moving. 

With only a quiet reassurance that he would be back soon, he disappeared from her side. She listened to his boots thud on the dock, deceptively quiet for a man in full armour.

Leaning against the railing beside her, Omera opened her eyes and looked out at the water. The docks were high up enough from the water that she could let her legs dangle over the edge, and the boards beneath her were warm from the sun. Already she felt better, and took as deep a breath she could without hurting the stitches in her side.

As she waited, she watched the other side of the riverbed. It was just as crowded with docks and stalls, with people moving about and filling the air with chatter. Her eyes caught on a little girl, pulling at her father’s pant leg and demanding he pay attention to the toy in her hand. She could not hear the girl’s pleas, but she had a good idea of what she was saying.

Her mouth tugged up in a smile. It made her pine for Winta; made her wonder how she was faring back home. She remembered her promise to buy her daughter  _ something cool _ to bring back from their trip—a priority even greater than medical supplies or weapons. Her hand pressed to her chest, over the ache that had formed there as she continued to watch the little girl. They would be back home soon enough.

She probably should have been paying attention to her surroundings, but with a slight flinch she saw Din reappear by her side, his hand now full of something he was passing to her. She took it, realising that he was handing her a wrapped lunch. It was warm beneath her fingers, and the smell that wafted up from it made her mouth water.

He sat down beside her, bracing his back on the opposite railing and letting one of his legs stretch out behind her. “Thank you,” she said with as much strength as she could muster. When she saw that was the only thing he’d purchased, she frowned. “What about you?”

“I’m alright for now,” he replied evenly, nodding to the lunch in her hands. “Eat.”

She didn’t need to be told twice.

Peeling off the parchment, she saw that he’d bought her a wrap of some kind from one of the stalls. Not caring what was in it, she devoured the meal in front of her. It turned out to be just as vivid as the city itself—a riverweed wrap packed with colourful vegetables, tubers, and cheeses. It immediately made her feel better.

“I will protest further—” she told him in between bites, “—once I am done this.”

“Protest?” he asked, and she could picture him arching a brow.

She wiped at her mouth and nodded. “I’m just as beat up as you are, and I’m not carrying around a full suit of armour.”

“It’s alright,” he insisted, then nodded to the crowd behind them. “Couldn’t eat if I wanted to.”

“Oh. Of course,” she murmured, kicking herself mentally for forgetting. Omera looked down at her meal, suddenly feeling guilty. “That must be terribly inconvenient.”

“There’s upsides to it,” he repeated, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “You get good at finding alcoves.”

She nodded, surreptitiously taking another bite of her food. “Did you see any on our way in?”

“A few,” he replied. “You don’t need to feel bad. I’m used to it.”

Omera looked out across the river again, back to the other side of the market. The little girl and her father were gone now, but that was no longer what she was interested in; she watched the streets the way a Mandalorian would, cataloguing dark corners and gaps between stores not as threats but as potential spots for relief and refuge. What a strange and wonderful way to experience a place.

“I’ll save you half,” she declared then, partly to make sure she didn’t eat the entire wrap right then and there. “We can find one afterwards.”

“I’m okay—”

“You don’t need to pretend for me, Din,” she interrupted him, and saw his shoulders relax a little. “I know you’re tired and hungry, too.”

He paused for a moment, considering her words. She wished she could see his face; she already missed having that luxury. But then he nodded, sighing softly, as if coming to some realisation. “I saw a good place we could go,” he murmured.

She smiled back at him. “Good.” 

Looking back out at the river, she turned her attention to the fish. They gathered curiously around her dangling feet, probably waiting for some food to drop. Continuing to eat, she tapped one of Din’s boots to get his attention. “Have you been here before?”

“Once,” he said, his voice still a little gruff. “It was a long time ago, though.”

He didn’t elaborate any further, and she decided not to press him for details. “I’d like to spend the day here, if you’re up for it,” she said instead, and he looked up in surprise. There was a piece of reed grass rolling in his gloved fingers, pulled up from the slats between the dock.

“Are you?” he countered.

“After this I will be,” she assured him, gesturing with her wrap. “We can get the essentials out of the way first, and then….”

“Then what?”

“And then I would like to waste the rest of the day with you,” she finished in earnest. “I can’t remember the last time I had pocket money to spend and time to kill in a proper market. There’s nothing like this on Sorgan.”

He was quiet for a moment, fidgeting with the reed strand. “You’re not worried about getting back home?” 

“Of course I am,” she replied, sobering a little. There was no way to forget. “But I almost died a few days ago, and now I have a handsome man on my arm. I’d like to celebrate life a little. I think that I—that  _ we— _ have earned that, at least.”

Torn between addressing her brush with death and the clearly unexpected compliment, he fell into a sheepish silence. Knowing now the expression that must be all over his face, she grinned. “It’ll be good,” she assured him. “When was the last time you had fun?”

“Fun?” he echoed, as if he hadn’t heard the word before. Din looked out to the river. “I don’t know.”

“I saw a flyer for a play in the square, further inland,” she told him. “And I still have to buy Winta a souvenir. I also,” she added, looking down at her wrap before reluctantly folding the parchment back over it—she would eat the entire thing otherwise. “Promised you that I would help you buy some things for your boy.”

“I’ll cover that,” he said immediately, but he sounded absentminded, his attention fractured. He was studying the reed in his hand, absorbed with how it twirled between the roll of his fingers. “A play...?”

She suppressed a laugh. He must be completely unused to anyone asking to spend time with him, she thought. “Are you a theatre man, Din?”

That got a huff out of him. “Depends on what you count as theatre.”

It was her turn to be taken aback. She gave him an incredulous look, struggling—and failing—to picture him involved in any kind of artistic pursuit.

After a moment he explained himself. “I wasn’t in any,” he said, seeing her shocked expression. “But the covert—kids would put on little plays after supper. They asked me to buy them props from the market sometimes. Wooden staffs, paint, things like that.”

“What were they about?” she asked, deeply curious. He didn’t bring up his tribe often, and she knew the reason why, but she couldn’t help the prodding. It was so odd to think of him surrounded by other Mandalorians, laughing and watching children playing, at ease and relaxed. His own family.

“Killing stormtroopers, mostly,” he replied. The wistfulness in his voice made her want to reach over and embrace him. “Used to fight over who had to play the Imps.”

“I don’t think this one will be so interesting as that,” she replied, looking over her shoulder back towards the main boardwalk. “But if you’d prefer not to—”

“No,” he said hurriedly. “I’d—I’d like that.”

She smiled. The soft tentativeness in his voice had returned, however briefly. “Good. Let’s find you a place to eat though, first.”

* * *

Cara was starting to worry. Every day Winta would find new, more outlandish places to sequester herself away from the rest of the village, and left unattended she would stay out there all day. Torn between being overbearing and being negligent, Cara would usually allow the girl a few hours of alone time before finally giving into the nagging voice in the back of her head that told her Omera would be very upset if she let her daughter be eaten by forest cats. 

The girl was decent at covering her tracks, and even better at cramming herself into spaces no adult would be able to enter, but today Cara found her lying spread eagle in the fields by the outskirts of the village, just before the treeline. She had her apron flipped up over her head to shield her eyes from the sun, and the kid was tucked loosely in one of her arms. The collection of stones Djarin had left him were spread out in the grass, and the kid attended to them in turns, clicking his claws against a stone before dropping it in favour of another.

Cara stopped at Winta’s feet, standing over them. The kid looked up when Cara’s shoulders blocked out the evening sun, and the sudden absence of direct, intense heat made Winta pull her frock down enough to peek up at her.

“Pretty easy to find you,” Cara mused, and Winta gave her a dismissive look before flipping her apron back up over her eyes. “What happened this time?”

“Nothing,” she muffled beneath the fabric, and didn’t elaborate further. The kid gurgled by her side, and she soothed him with a small pat. 

Cara didn’t believe her for a moment, but decided to leave it alone for now. “You don’t want the kid to get sunburnt, do you?”

That gave Winta pause. She felt his head for a moment before shrugging, making the grass rustle around her. “Fuzzy doesn’t feel hot.”

“Sunburns take awhile to manifest.”

“What does manifest mean?”

Cara sighed and knelt down, reaching out to extricate the kid from Winta’s grasp. The girl sat up immediately at that, apron falling into her lap, and hugged him close to her chest. “What are you doing?” she demanded, glaring at her.

“Taking him inside,” she explained calmly. “It’s boiling out.”

“He’s fine,” Winta said defensively, almost a whine. “I’m taking care of him.”

“And I’m taking care of you both,” Cara replied. “So come inside and get some water.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

She suppressed another sigh. Apparently today was going to be a difficult one.

“Let’s go for a walk, then,” she suggested. “Through the forest.”

It would be a stretch to say that Winta perked up at the offer, but the forest was still enough of an unknown that she would be hard-pressed to refuse, even in such a foul mood. 

“I get to hold Fuzzy,” Winta bargained after a moment of consideration, and Cara tried not to let her smile look too amused.

“Done deal.”

Cara didn’t offer a hand to help, knowing how it would be received, and waited for Winta to brush the grass off her frock before collecting the kid’s stones and depositing them into a pocket. The kid now in hand, Cara lead the way into the forest, breathing a sigh of relief as the dense canopy offered refuge from the sun.

“Where are we going?” Winta asked behind her, looking up at the massive bluewood pines.

“We’re walking the perimeter,” Cara told her, not leaving any room for debate on that front. It was a long enough hike that it would probably tire Winta out, and it was the only part of the forest where she was reasonably certain they wouldn’t be set upon by wildlife—or whatever stray raiders still roamed the woods.

Winta deliberately didn’t keep pace with her, meandering a few metres behind and making sure to scuff her feet as she walked. The spongy, rotten underbrush kicked up easily with the disturbance, spraying small fans of leaves and pine needles with each step. If that was her version of being defiant for today, Cara would take it; it was a welcome relief from the other, more disruptive tantrums Winta had been throwing over the course of the week.

“So,” Cara said slowly. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“You skipped out on dinner.”

“It’s too hot to sit inside with everyone,” Winta complained.

Cara smiled. “So you laid out in the field instead?”

Winta went silent, and after a while Cara gave up waiting for an answer. It was impossible to predict what would trigger a response from the girl; sometimes all it took was another kid complaining that she wasn’t sharing Fuzzy enough (and Cara would tell Djarin when he got back to think up a name for little tyke, otherwise he’d be stuck with Fuzzy for the rest of his life). Sometimes it took nothing at all to set Winta in a foul mood. It was difficult enough to keep track of the inconsequential feuds that occurred between the village children on an hourly basis without Winta’s unpredictable moods, and Cara wasn’t much of a kid person to begin with. 

But a promise was a promise.

“Do you think they’re coming back today?” Winta finally said, breaking a long stretch of silence.

“I don’t know,” Cara replied truthfully, the same way she replied every time she was asked the question. “It’s been about a week.”

“Eight days,” Winta informed her. “Nine tomorrow.”

“They said it would take awhile.”

“I know,” Winta said sullenly. “But they promised.”

Cara looked back over her shoulder at the girl, who had her head down as she focused on kicking up as much dirt as possible. “They’ll be back.”

“How do you know?”

“Like you said—they promised,” Cara reminded her, like she did every day, and that seemed to ease Winta’s mind some.

They were quiet for a while again after that. The forest was noisy, and filled the space left from a lack of conversation with the ringing of birdsong and rustling branches. The wind was strong today, and it was the only thing that made the heat bearable.

In the interim, Cara took stalk of what still needed to be done. Sora’s hut was being rebuilt, but that would take some days yet to complete; the pond they’d used to fell the walker was being refilled with dirt to balance out its depth, and Caben and Stoke were trying their best to restore the pH balance of the water so they could use it again for the next harvest cycle. Alkaline sediment deposits were rare in this part of the planet, so they were limited in what they could do until Djarin and Omera got back with supplies.

And then there was the business with Rend.

They’d buried him two days ago, far enough away from the ponds that his body wouldn’t pollute the water table in the village. His things had to be sorted and then distributed throughout the village, and his home had to be properly cleaned. Out of everything in the village that needed tending to, that was the one thing everyone had been avoiding.

“You’re still not wearing your armour,” Winta observed, breaking the silence.

“Too hot,” Cara told her, looking down at herself. Even her undershirt felt like too much. 

“What if we get attacked?”

“We won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re awfully worrisome for a nine year-old.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Winta went quiet again, and paused altogether to sit down on the ground. She set the kid beside her and pulled out the stones from her frock, handing one of them to the kid.

Cara stopped and turned, a pang of guilt radiating throughout her stomach. It was hard to remember what it felt like to be so young, even at the best of times. She’d blocked a lot of it out, and for good reason. She wondered if Winta would too, once she grew up. Certainly this tumultuous phase of her life would be a prime candidate. Cara found herself hoping she would—for her own sake if nothing else.

“You wanna do some more training today?” she offered, trying not to sound too patronising. Winta had gotten wise to anything she perceived as an attempt to change her mind about something. “We could try moving targets again.”

“No,” the girl said resolutely, still not looking at Cara. The kid made warbling noises of contentment at the return of his rocks, though Winta wasn’t smiling at him like usual.

Cara really, really hoped she wasn’t about to cry. She’d barely held it together the last time.

Cara walked over and sat down next to her, though she gave her a decent bubble of personal space. Winta refused to look up, and Cara saw that her chin was scrunched with determination.

“I know the last few weeks have been really hard,” Cara said, wondering if that was even the best way to begin. “It’s okay to feel out of sorts.”

Winta shrugged the words off silently, handing the kid a new stone. He hummed in delight, seemingly oblivious to the dark cloud hanging over Winta’s head—or perhaps he  _ was  _ fully aware. He was particularly chipper this morning, and it wouldn’t be the first time the kid was hyper-attuned to the emotions of the people around him.

“But your par—your mom will be back soon, same with Djarin,” she continued, wincing.

“He’s not my dad,” Winta said, picking up on the slip. “My dad is dead.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh, stretching her legs out. “I know he’s not.”

“Mama said she’d never leave,” Winta told her. This was not the first time they had this exact conversation, and it wouldn’t be the last. It seemed to be occupying the girl’s thoughts constantly. “She said we’d stay here forever.”

“She didn’t leave. She’s coming back.”

“‘In a week’,” Winta echoed in a mocking tone. She shoved a stone into the dirt with enough force that it sunk in halfway. “She took a stranger with her and not me.”

“Djarin’s not a stranger—”

“Why do you call him that?” Winta interrupted her with an annoyed look, quite rudely. “No one else does.”

Cara pursed her lips. “Reflex, I guess. I’m used to calling people by their last names.”

“You’re weird.”

Cara laughed. Expecting to get a rise out of her instead, Winta looked up in surprise, and some of the anger even drained from her face, albeit begrudgingly.

“You’re weird too, kid.”

“I am not!”

Cara laughed harder, and Winta picked up a clump of underbrush and hurled it at her. The damp earth was wondrously cool on her skin, even if it did smear her shirt.

Instead of retaliating, mostly because she didn’t want to expend the energy, Cara laid back down in the dirt and looked up at the trees above them. The sky peeked through the canopy in little dots of powdery blue. Maybe she’d take a break today and lie around the forest—without resorting to jumping into a krill pond, it was the best way to keep cool.

That took the wind out of Winta’s sails, and after a moment she heard the girl lay down, too. Cara glanced over at them and saw the kid follow suit, lying back against Winta’s arm.

“They’ll be back,” she said after a moment, with as much confidence as she could muster.

“Yeah,” Winta conceded, sighing. “I guess.” 

“No guessing. They’ll keep their promise.”

Winta blew a raspberry, not quite in protest but still with enough attitude to let Cara know she wasn’t done complaining. At least she didn’t sound so angry now.

“It was Kasi,” Winta said then, making Cara look over at her. “She called me names.”

“And why did she do that?”

“She said I didn’t deserve being the favourite.”

Cara frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m the one the Mandalorian said had to look after Fuzzy,” Winta explained. “And he’s giving me gun lessons. But I’m not the favourite for no reason. I don’t cry and complain like they do. I watch over Fuzzy better than anyone—it was Balif’s fault that he fell in the ponds. If I’d been watching him it never would’ve happened.”

Cara absorbed that for a moment, wondering what to say. She damn well knew the reason why Djarin was taking such a shine to the girl, and it wasn’t because she was good with his kid. Or at least, it certainly wasn’t the only reason. But that wasn’t her business, and telling Winta the truth wouldn’t be helpful—not with Djarin planning to skip town whenever he decided he had enough of laying low.

“And I’m a better shot than all of them, too,” Winta continued when Cara didn’t reply. There was a desperate edge in her voice now, like she was trying to prove herself. “I hit the tree the first time I ever shot. I’m the one who will have to protect the village when I grow up.”

“I know, kid,” Cara said with a sigh, looking back up at the trees. “It’s—it’s complicated.”

“What is?”

“Everything,” Cara said vaguely.

Winta made a  _ pfft _ sound. “I guess. But you don’t think I don’t deserve to be the favourite, right?”

How the hell was she supposed to answer that? “I think it’s admirable that you’re taking such good care of Fuzzy,” she replied slowly. That was probably a good thing to say. “And you’re doing well with your lessons. But I understand why the other kids feel left out.”

The prospect of having to make up for the preferential treatment by teaching every child in the village how to shoot at pots and pans was horribly unappealing. She’d have to have a few conversations with the Mandalorian when he got back. 

“And,” Cara continued, “you need to listen to adults when they give you advice about the baby. They know what they’re talking about.”

“Okay,” Winta said uncertainly. “What does admirable mean?”

Cara laughed again. “It means I respect you, kid.”

“Oh. Cool.” A pause. “I’m not weird, though.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’m not!”


End file.
